You Represent Me

Mother's Day, 2024

First a story:

I must have been 16 or 17. My mother’s friend Shelly — she had two friends named Shelly: one petite and blond; one zaftig with red hair. This was the zaftig one — claimed that my brother and I had recently come over to her house and were disrespectful. Her exact words to my mother: “Your sons ran amok.” I don’t know whether we did or not; nevertheless, my mother would have none of it.

“What are you talking about, ‘ran amok’?”I heard my mother scream into the phone. “Like your kids are such beauties when they come to my house.” Then, a few moments later. “Yes, I’m giving you an argument about this.”

Always loved that expression.

When my mother hung up, I thanked her for her coming to my defense.

“I wasn’t going to let her get away it, Ba. In a sense, you represent me. And if you did go over to her house and did act like that and I find out about it, I’m going to lay you out.”

Always loved that expression, too.

My mother died in 1999, five years before the advent of Facebook and its subsequent success at changing, disfiguring, and destroying life, so she would have missed the photos and comments that come around every Mother’s Day.

I imagine, though, sometime today, had she still been with us, the following conversation:

“So, Ba, tell me about this, uh — what do you call it? — the face, the book. What the hell is it again?”

“Facebook.”

“Facebook?”

“Facebook.”

“So what is it?”

“It’s a place on the computer that people post, uh, write messages for the world, their friends to see about politics, cats, their work, relationships, whatever. Share thoughts.”

“Why?”

“There’s no good answer to that.”

“So, what is it with these fakokta photos of these old broads people keep showing me? It’s on TV, too, on the news. These are the moms I guess.”

“Nice. Yes, it’s Mother’s Day. It’s what people do. Post photos of the old broads. They celebrate their mothers by putting up pictures and writing about the good memories they have of them.”

“Did you put up a picture of me?”

“Yes.”

“Which one?”

“It’s the same one you have near the kitchen table.”

“Oy, Ba! Why’d you pick that one?”

“It’s nice. We’re having a moment.”

“What kind of moment?”

“A moment.”

“A moment?”

“A moment, yes.”

“Please. I look terrible.”

“You don’t look terrible.”

“Nu? This picture he shows. So what good memory did you . . . what is it again?”

“Post?”

“Yeah.”

“None. I have no good memories. I didn’t post anything. You were a tyrant when I was growing up.”

“A fire on you! It would kill you to write something nice? Put something nice!”

“No.”

“What a miserable bastard you are.”

“Oh, that’s funny. All right, all right, I’ll write something nice.”

“It’s too late. I don’t want you to now.”