My dear mother's annual corsage has been the bane of my sisters' and my lives. We get into trouble with delivery every year. We have guarded optimism for this year.
What doesn't help is our mother's name; Henrietta Dykstra. Why is this a problem? Because in our small home town of 1800 people, there are three Henrietta Dykstras. Yes, three women named Henrietta found three Dykstra men to marry.
This is also the town where if you show up to church on Mother's Day without a corsage, it mean not only your children do not love you, but you were a failure in motherhood in not making them know that showing up sans corsage means this.
Delivery is also a problem in that the town has street names and house numbers, but people don't use them. After several years of dealing with the local florist who the last time brought it to ALL THREE Henriettas, finally getting to our mother the day after Mother's Day, (yes, she was shown to be an unloved mother and a failure) and when we refused to pay, accused us of being very ungrateful in language we were not allowed to use when growing up (although we did hear it from Dad in the barnyard), we started using an out of town florist last year.
Again it made it to the three Henriettas. We even had it listed as Mrs. Leroy Dykstra, and it still made it to the three Henriettas.
Janna is in charge this year. Beth got the abusive phone call two years ago and is still traumatized. (She did end up paying for the too late corsage, only so that Mom wouldn't get a phone call herself.)
5 comments:
That is so funny! (Well, not to you, I'm sure...but, you know...)
Happy Mother's day, Lynn!
Hi, Lynn!
Happy Mother's Day to you! I am trying to instill in my children the importance of providing me with gifts OF MY LIKING on Mother's Day. The 3 year old wanted to get me tools from Menard's, so he needs a little work. Perhaps your Mom could give me a few pointers.
Lynn, this is just a thought for next year. Buy the corsage, but then have another person actually drop it off. You know, someone who actually knows where your mom lives. And I feel for those other Henrietta's, especially if they have no children.
What a story - awful each year, but over the years, it will be the repeated "remember when..." story to tell to all the relatives.
Great story Lynn. At one time there were two other women in Chicago with the same name of Rebecca Rubin, but I was the only one with a listed number so I would get some of their calls. It was like being an involuntary detective. Which one was the music teacher and which the one with taste in unsavory men? I've also had the experience that coming from a slightly bigger hometown can cause slightly different problems. when I came home from college vacation one year I was disappointed in a friend who said she would call, and didn't. Only after I went back to school did I discover the problem was that she had forgotten my father's first name! After calling the first 50 Rubins in the Manhattan phone book - not even half of one column - she despaired after seeing five more pages.
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