THE BEST MOTHER'S DAY GIFT

I'm gonna offer a piece of advice here. Advice? Me? How unusual.
If you want to do something really, really nice for your mother on Mother's Day, may I suggest the following script:

"Mom, I love you and care about you enough that I would prefer not to take you out for brunch/lunch/dinner on Mother's Day. I love you enough not to expose you to the nere-do-well's, slackers and pond scum that inhabit the restaurants of the world on this one day of the year. I respect you enough to keep you away from the squabbling families that have dragged some poor old woman out of the "home" and sit at the table arguing about who has to take her to the bathroom, as though she were not present to hear them. I honor you enough to take you out for a meal once a month, every month, for the rest of the year, rather than put either of us through the hell of the common Mother's Day crowd."

Call me naive, but I didn't want to believe one of the other servers at the restaurant when she said the Mother's Day is the worst day of the year, but she was right. It is, quite possibly, the worst day of the year to be a server. Most of the people you will serve probably don't EVER go to restaurants, except on Mother's Day (at least not restaurants with cloth napkins). And on the day that they are forced by their own guilt to take the matriarch out, because Hallmark has sold them the idea hook, line & sinker, they are so crabby about it that no one is going to have a good time....least of all the guest of honor.....WHO USUALLY ENDS UP PAYING.'

I tell you, if I took my mother out for Mother's Day brunch, and expected her to pay, I'd never hear the end of it. But, apparently, there are plenty of mothers out there that are so desperate to spend time with their darling ones that they are willing to put up with the disrespect and abuse just to suffer through two hours of haggling over the price of a beer. My advice to them........cut the deadweight and ask for a gift certificate next year. Go out with some girl friends and get drunk.