Thursday, May 11, 2006

Seasonal reflections

Contrary to popular belief, Mother's Day was not conceived and fine-tuned in the boardroom of Hallmark. The earliest tributes to mothers date back to the annual spring festival the Greeks dedicated to Rhea, the mother of many deities, and to the offerings ancient Romans made to their Great Mother of Gods, Cybele.

However, today, what should be a pleasant experience between mother and children has turned into an exemplification of the worst traits of man. Allow me to refresh your memory through my personal experiences –

First, there are the obligatory cards. Don’t deny it - you wait until it’s actually Mother’s Day to buy the card, and by that time all the real Mother’s Day cards are gone, so you have to settle for some lame, no-name humour card that has a picture of what looks like a female on it. Mom knows you bought the card just before visiting. She saw you park at the parking lot to fill it out. Strike One.

Next comes what to get her for Mother’s Day. You have no clue. She has a million cookbooks and enough serving trays to feed the army with, so you settle on a cheap box of bath soaps, never minding the fact that Mom hasn’t taken an actual bath since the day you were born. Strike Two.

And lastly, there’s the whole bit about taking Mom out for brunch on Mother’s Day. This, in theory, is a wonderful idea, but the problem is that every other person and his or her mother is trying to do the same thing at exactly the same time. Restaurants that are normally wonderful and cheery become wastelands barren of courtesy, respect, and humanity. You’ll have overworked servers, overworked hosts(esses), overworked chefs, and worse, stressed out patrons trying to bully their way into getting their mothers the next open table. So Mom ends up having to bail you out of jail because of that fight you picked to get the window table, and so, once again, another Mother’s Day is ruined. Strike Three.

That however, is hypothetical – I never really did end up in a jail cell.

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'Ain at 16:45

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