I miss my mom

No, she's not dead or sick or anything like that. She's just unavailable via text. And it's driving me nuts. Some people might think I don't have all that much contact with her because we don't talk on the phone much and we don't e-mail regularly. But, we text. A lot.

Back in high school, the tradition developed of the rant of the day. There was always something that happened at school that I just had to rant about when I got home. My English teacher said something homophobic. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes girls put up more "Jesus will save you" posters. The principal was threatening to censure the student newspaper. I was a socially and politically aware teenager, so I found things to be outraged about without even trying.

Naturally, this has continued over the years, though I no longer deliver my rants sitting at the kitchen table while she cooks dinner. (And, yes, I helped.) For example, when Law & Order had the awful, horrible, no good, very bad episode in which a defense attorney was sentenced to 20 years in prison for refusing to violate attorney-client privilege, my mom knew I was calling before her phone even rang. (FYI, I have never watched L&O since.)

Since we got cell phones, I have been able to give free reign to my rants, even if they are only 100 characters long. Anytime I have a random thought or gripe or interesting moment, I can just whip off a text to Mom. I always feel better after I rant to my mom. And in the case of a good tidbit, it feels more real after I have told Mom. There are a lot of things in life that no one can ever quite understand the import of more than your mother, having experienced almost every moment of your personal history.

But for the last week and a half, she has been out of text range. And so many, many things have happened in the past week that I couldn't tell her about!

I finally tracked down my childhood best friend on Facebook today and all I wanted to do was text my mom, "I found Susie Smith [not her real name]!" I went to tell Meryl and, try though she did, she just couldn't match the level of excitement my mom would have felt. Understandable as Meryl had never heard of Susie Smith before while Mom would know this was the girl I always coordinated my Halloween costumes with.

I couldn't get my garbage disposal to work. I was so frustrated, I wanted to cry. It would have been such a relief to be able to blast off a short text about it to Mom. I got it fixed, btw. All by myself. So the nice co-worker who dropped by this evening to help got 2 beers, 45 minutes of football on cable tv, and didn't have to get his hands dirty. Not that I could tell Mom about any of this.

The main thing we text our annoyances about, though, is politics. And there have been a lot of things to rant about lately! My governor turning down a $31.5 mil federal grant that will now just go to another state. The whole debt ceiling thing. And tonight, the Republican debate. I really can't listen to those candidates talk about taxes or gay marriage or abortion without steam coming out of my ears. Usually, I deal with this with a flurry of texts with Mom. But no such luck tonight.

Over the past week, I fear I have posted way too many links and status updates on Facebook and tonight I finally figured out why. I need my mom back! I need to be able to text her with whatever occurs to me whenever it occurs to me! I am undoubtedly annoying all of my friends. I am totally off-kilter. Because my #1 outlet is not available.

So Mom, please get back to your cell phone soon. And, so I don't lose any friends over my compulsive need to share ranty tidbits, please don't ever be separated from your cell phone again. Thanks.

UPDATE: She's back! I spoke to her for about 10 minutes today and told her all about my grade school friend and complained about the Republican debate and bragged about my garbage disposal triumph. All is now right with the world.