Insights

#254: Earn Your Daily Brat Once a Year

Listen up, you many kids of all ages. It’s almost Mother’s Day.

You know what that means, don’t you? Florists are happy as flowers are sacrificed.

What about mothers? Believe it or not, this one-day be-nice behavior does not fool mothers. They worry about your conduct on the other 364 days.

(What if you don’t have a mother? Don’t worry. You still have Mother Earth. She needs you now more than ever. So please leave her flowers alone.)


My mother warned me that women judge a man by how he treats his mother. She wanted me to be a gentleman.

I once read somewhere, at least I think I did, that the true test of a gentleman is how he behaves when nobody is watching. Whenever I remember this, I have to wonder. How do you treat your mother when florists and other retailers are not watching?

To me, Mother’s Day has become like over-commercialized religions. It reminds me of the church-going adults I avoided as a kid, the ones who believed that one day of religion bought them six days of behaving badly.

Please people, one insincere Mother’s Day card attached to wilted flowers does not earn you three hundred and sixty-four days of being a brat.

Even Anna Jarvis came to dislike Mother’s Day. Who? Find her on the Internet and be informed.

Next up on the be-nice calendar is Father’s Day. Trust me, I’m watching you. Every day.


Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.