Nothing says mothers day like a robot costume...

Maybe I'm a few days late to ramble on about mothers day. How grumpy everyone was on that holiest of days. Ok, so I usually do a pretty crappy job of remembering my mothers "day", as well as her anniversary, birthday and how much she hates run on sentences. I'm a self-absorbed son. Well, I got a card this year. On my own. No reminders from anyone. My wife bought chocolates. We make a good team, each doing half the work and getting the job done. That's why we got married, so we each can do a half assed job all the time now. Equal division of labor rocks! Anyway, I squeaked by in the "remembering" category this year (so far...) and actually saw mom on mothers day. Two for two. Everyone I ran into on mothers day was pretty miffed though. As in, (actual conversation here...) "Yeah, she wants to make dinner for me and my wife. That's why I'm shopping 'sigh'. Sure am glad to be here and not there though! Damned mothers day.". Honest, that was the sentiment I encountered all day. It sure must suck to have a mom looking out for your expanding waistline on "her" day! Man, the only thing worse than that is if she had those cold beers waiting for you when you finished shopping (for butter the mom was using to cook his dinner with). And we all know she had the beer cold. So, the flip side of all this is that a lot of people were buying aluminum foil. In two's and three's, multiple rolls at a time. And at the end of my grocery store experience three kids (fifteen and sixteen is still 'kids') came through the line with three rolls of aluminum foil, a couple red bulls and a bagel. Not a word was said till they finished paying, at which point the guy (there were two girls, a guy...no pizza place...) who was not only silent but stone still the entire time looked over at me and said "Robot Costume". That was it, "Robot Costume". A smile and they left. And I was thinking, what says mothers day better than a robot costume? Nothing. Those three silent kids had put all the petty, angst riddled family drama I'd seen that day into stunning perspective. Wrap yourself up in aluminum foil, empty yourself of emotion and desire and then go about your day. Be a robot. Robots are souless machines bent on the destruction of human kind. They drink way too much. They are foul mouthed and will steal your medications. But they are completely selfless. They have no soul to serve and are mostly sedate till the backup programming kicks in. Robots are the perfect template for mothers day harmony. They don't complain, they don't think, they merely do. For once in your life, ignore your inner cries of protest about suffering at moms hands. Let go of the pain and resentment. Don't try to focus on positives. Don't become a martyr. Literally deny yourself existence for one damn day and let your mom have a day of her own. Because they are few and far between for her. Every other day of the year you can be as ungrateful and resentful as you want. Heck, you probably have good reason to be! I don't question your right to be that way, just the necessity. For one single day, make yourself a robot costume, commune with your robot nature and let go. Let mom be mom. Be her son or daughter. Don't bitch and moan. Don't complain. Just be. She'll appreciate it more than all the flowers, chocolate and butter in the world. It's selfless. My whole family accidentally bought my mom her favorite starbucks drink on mothers day. She's got like four or five still in the fridge. That's not really selfless. It's considerate. The selfless part is that my brother and dad had those coupons for a "buy one get one free" drink at starbucks. They got my moms drinks and then split one drink themselves. That was selfless. It also was not robotic. They're beyond the need for robot sympathy, having learned on their own to value another more highly. But for all the special people, seriously think about investing in some aluminum foil next year. It'll make the world a better place for a day. And then when the robots do come in the middle of the night, they will mistake you for other robots and the human resistance can flourish briefly before being wipped out once and for all.