Ma Bell

Well we know it won't be a scathing e-mail.

Mom's true medium is voicemail. A master.

I chat with my sister all the way home from work. It is clearly on her mind that I may be subjected to the wrath of Estelle because she shared some juicy morsels with our mother in the heat of battle.

I am not really as concerned as the average bear about being in trouble. Trouble is in the eye of the beholder. What's Mom going to do? Drive up here to pull my hair?

I do brace myself as I pull up to my house. I am still yakking with my sister and she's asked me to check my phone messages before I hang up. We are both curious - and frankly - a good rant from Estelle would make excellent verbatim blog copy!

I scroll through my missed calls. Not one from Mom.

Not that day.

Not the next day.

And not the next.

Maybe she's going to fire off one of her famous nasty letters. In a nice note card with little birds and bougainvillea on it. Bill's daughter got one in her Easter card of all things.

But a few days go by and there is no letter bomb.

And then suddenly one afternoon the tell tale red light is blinking at me from the hall table when I arrive home, and a quick scroll through the missed calls reveals one from Grandmomstella.

And even with all the distance (thanks again to the Colonies...) and the firm conviction that I have accurately and without embellishment represented the (bizarre) facts to my sister, and the confidence that I have the ability to evaluate right from wrong, separate fact from myth, distinguish rudeness from etiquette - and the fact that I do not actually have to listen to the entire message that she's left at the sound of the tone, I am kind of in a flop sweat.

I pour myself a cold glass of lemonade. Take a deep breath. Blow through the first few messages: from the Girl Scout leader, the bizarre massage therapist that has mistaken my number for someone else's, Tony Roni's who thinks I ordered a stromboli.

And then Mom.

But it is not a tongue lashing. No, it is a heads up call to be on the lookout for a gift I'll be getting in the mail.

"Hi! I just wanted to let you know that there will be a gift coming to you from me from QVC. You mentioned that you were worried about getting dark circles under you eyes and were putting vitamin K or some damn thing on them - but I saw this stuff on QVC and they put it on the model, I think her name is Kathy, and wow! what a difference! So I took a guess at the shade you'd need, it is some kind of brightener- and if you don't like it, you can send it back using the label they give you..."