The voice at the end of my cell phone says:
“Happy F-#@!-ing Mother’s Day To You!” WHAT ????
How dare you!
Let me explain! At the break of dawn on Mother’s Day last year…
(Isn’t Sunday morning still sacred for church, sleep, wild sex or Grandma’s Gingerbread Pancakes?)
My not so smart phone BLARES…
to the jarring, heart skipping gyrations of Lady Gaga (admittedly my dubious choice),
Wake Up, sleepyhead!
Eager (okay, desperate) to have a loving Mother’s Day greeting from my sweet daughter at college (who is in a time zone three hours ahead and is hopefully coming out of her nightly coma around this time)
or one of my many lovely nieces (whose birthdays and special days I never forget)
or Federal Express informing me that an extravagant gourmet food & vintage wine basket delivery is speedily on its way to my doorstep,
I gladly jump the phone.
BUT instead of heartfelt greetings rewarding a lifetime of devotion, service and sacrifice,
(Violins, please!) 
I hear a pregnant (PUN ALERT) pause and a chilling automated male voice:
“This is the L.A. County Jail Tele-system.
A prisoner inside the L.A. County Prison System is calling you.
To accept this call, press one…”
ARRRGGH! I shut the phone off, fling it across the room (sorry pooch) then bathe it in a bucket of Purell hand sanitizer. YUCK!
BLASPHEMY! SACRILEGE! It’s Mother’s Day for heaven’s sake!
Mother’s Day is a sacred day reserved for daisy bouquets and family brunches and soothing back rubs and sticky kisses – NOT creepy, crazy obscene phone calls from serial killers and sociopaths in solitary confinement.
Whew! Close call!
Happy Mother's Day
As my mother would say (and hers and hers and hers…)
“What is the world coming to?”
I know the answer: It’s coming to our cell phones!
Listen to your mother!
Barb's Blast 