My favorite emails from my mom are the ones where she responds to something I wrote by sending me an email that contains no signature, no “Dear Grace” but just “hahahahahhahhahahahahhaa.”
Or I’ll send her a thoughtful, three-paragraph letter in which I pose several questions to her, respond to her previous emails questions and maybe even throw in a few links, and she writes back, “OK.”
Jessica Grose and Doree Shafrir started a website collecting these gems of mother-to-child communication. Postcards from Yo Mamma is a funny, relatable compendium of text messages, emails, handwritten notes and phone conversations documented for your reading pleasure. Below are a few of my favorite recent posts:
Backstory: I recently gave my mother a few mini-bottles of port.
Mum: You know, I can’t open one of the bottles. The cap turns and turns but won’t come off.
Me: Maybe you could make a little hole in it
Mum: What?! And drink it like a baby’s bottle?? I’m not quite that desperate, I’ll have you know.
Me: Ok, ok.
Mum: Nah, what we’re going to do is your dad’s going to hold onto one end, with a set of pliers, and I’ll use another set on the cap to unscrew it. And voila!
Me: Not desperate, huh?
Backstory: My friend sent me a link to get a free Snuggie, so I ordered one then passed it on to my mom, thinking she might want one too.
Did you order it? Did you read the terms? Maybe the terms are that you promise to wear it for 2 years straight, even in the summer and they get to put your sweaty face on their commercial, on national TV, during prime time, perhaps even the Super Bowl. Did you ever think about that? Be careful of free things!
Mama
Me: I’m nuts, that’s all there is to it
Mom: Good thing you aren’t down here… we have an abundance of squirrels this summer!!
Backstory: My mom is a retired psychiatrist and often informally diagnoses those around her. Sophie and Joey are our dogs and today Joey was the lucky recipient of her diagnostic ability.
Joey was beside himself with jealousy, trying his best to disrupt the game of tug-of-war between your father and Sophie. Joey suffers from multiple diagnoses, among them: attachment disorder and narcissistic disorder (along with terminal cuteness, of course.)
Don’t Spend 2 Much On Wedding Gifts
Backstory: I was telling my mom about how weird it is to be 19 and have 4 friends engaged. This was her thought on the matter…
don’t spend 2 much on wedding gifts, 3 of 4 will b divorced within a few yrs.
And my all-time favorite, from the Best Of section of the blog:
Surprise, I am writing you an email.
I NEED HELP AND SOON, BEFORE I STARVE TO DEATH !!!!
I am guessing that you are wondering how come I’m doing this — it’s just because I am locked into my computer room and cannot get out. I was trying to put a door knob on the door and got started, but the thing went completely closed as I was trying to see if it was going to fit — and now here I am having to stoop so low as to write an email to you to see if you could call someone to come get me out. My phones, of course, are all in the other room. I thought that perhaps you could call Beverly and have her and Howie come over and get me out. If you happen to have Tami’s number then call her.
Anyhow, can you get me out of here. I guess I’ll just play games on the computer until someone lets me out of here. Send me an email to let me know you are doing this for me.
