"You fool! Mothers do not get sick; they take care of the sickly!" - Dexter, Dexter's Laboratory

 

They look so small, don’t they? Yet they make so much noise. Whodathunkit?

If you don’t believe we live in The Matrix, then last week was a week to celebrate Mother’s Day. If you believe we live in The Matrix, it’s considered good etiquette to take your laptop or toaster out for dinner.

Mother’s Day (or is that Mothers’ Day) is a holiday that appears to be a wasted one – why would we applaud the efforts of someone who toils week in and week out to keep the family fed, covered in clean clothes, and living in an environment where the sink isn’t classified as a biological warfare laboratory? I think that these so-called “Mothers” should suffer in silence, like the fathers of the world. I mean, is fair that that Mother’s’ day is during the school year where The Boy can make gifts (laminated books filled with poetry about how much they love Mom), lovingly crafted at taxpayer expense at school? Father’s’ Day is during Summer Break, however, and I normally get items otherwise destined for the trash, like a torn, used chewing-gum covered Houston Astros™ poster and a chewed-through binky for presents.

I guess that kills the whole “suffering in silence” theory. Dang.

Anyway, I really don’t begrudge The Mrs. for the cookbook and poetry that The Boy worked on in school. I don’t like to cook. Heck, I’m just surprised that school boards (or school board lawyers) haven’t yet considered “Mother’s’ Day” an “outmoded view of the socio-economic world wherein children growing up without mothers are marginalized and disenfranchised by the whole celebration of mothers in general, and shall henceforward be replaced by ‘Non-Sex Specific Adult Quasi-Familial Authority Figure’ day.” This would be in keeping with Christmas Winter Break, Halloween Fall Festival, and Easter American Idol© Finale.

I’m only half kidding. Heck, I’m afraid I just gave some sort of group headed by some bitter wizened little crank a whole new cause to yell about at the local school board. If so, I’m sorry for the school board, but not all that sorry. I’m still mad about the fish sticks every Friday for TWELVE YEARS OF MY LIFE.

Ahem.

Back to Mother’s’ Day.

We had a good Mother’s’ Day at the Wilder Compound (it’s really only one building, but the guard tower, barbed wire, and electromagnetic detectors tent to make my small-minded neighbors brand it a compound). I got up and watched The Boy and Pugsley so The Mrs. could sleep in. When The Mrs. finally wandered into the front room, fresh and well rested, she was confronted with a snoring, drooling me splayed out on the couch like Bill Clinton on prom night. I’m thinking that The Mrs. found the cards and flowers (I was drifting in and out at that point) but I do recall The Boy meandering into his room to come back with . . . extra presents for Mom.

The Mrs. looked at me and said, “John, he totally weaseled you.”

The Boy did weasel me. Pugsley also weaseled me with “I luff you, Mommy,” pointing his big blue eyes up at her. Much like Jeanine Garafalo at a marathon, I was neither cute nor prepared.

I drifted back off to sleep.

Eventually I woke up to the sound of the mower – The Mrs. had decided to go out and take care of the near-junglerainforest conditions that were developing outside. Texans can abide by many a thing, but a poorly kept lawn is enough to start a blood feud that can last generations. It is a little-known fact that the Texas War of Independence started over General Santa Ana having a lake house with a poorly kept lawn. Sam Houston could not let that stand, especially since he owned the lake house next door.

It turns out that I’m the guy whose wife was out mowing on Mother’s’ Day.

I wonder who Agent Smith takes out for Mother’s’ Day? I’m betting, since he’s software, that he takes an Apple™ laptop out for dinner – because if The Matrix ran on Windows© Neo would have so kicked their butt when they blue-screened.