Oh, mother.

My mom is a saint. However, I haven't always believed so. As an meek and submissive middle child, mom always heaped the chores onto me instead of my rebellious older brother and mouthy and argumentative younger sister. Each time she did, my ears turned red with anger. I often imagine a cloud of steam rushing out of my ears and swirling in a cloud above my ten year old head.

I will say, though, that as I have gotten older, my mom has made viable attempts to become more hip and "with it." Her most recent endeavor was to master the art of texting so that she could reach her children when they didn't answer her 17th phone call of the day, which was probably just to ask them some trivial question like, "Did you remember to buy groceries this week?" or "Do you remember that your great-aunt's birthday is three weeks, two days, and 6 hours from right now?"

I appreciate her attempt. I really do. But, if calling her a master of texting was the truth, and the truth came in the shape of the popular 90's toy stretch armstrong, his arms would be helplessly stretched to the point where you can see the tiny beads that make up his malleable extremities.

I say all of this because I've noticed a pattern in my mom's texting. She has no idea how to turn the capitalization key on or off. She does it by accident. So, I consequently imagine her yelling these things at me. Recently, I've received messages like,

"Call me when you have a minute. NOTHING BIG. DON'T WORRY OR ANYTHING."

and, when I told her that a movie was good, she said,

"Is it? I BOUGHT THE MOVIE BUT HAVENT WATCHED IT YET," as if to tell me to get off her back for not having seen it.

Another favorite is when she inadvertently screams how she feels.

"That's nice. I MISS YOU AND I LOVE YOU AND I WANT YOU TO COME HOME SOON.

I secretly hope she never figures the caps key out. I also secretly hope that she doesn't even realize that she's doing it. In this case, her ignorance is truly my bliss.

Peace, love, and Paula Deen, ya'll

Seth