Ah, selflessness.

Mom: I want to get her (name redacted) something more substantial.

Me: It's unnecessary, don't worry about it.

Mom: No, I want it to mean something.

Me: Well, I think a gift certificate to the movies would be nice.

Mom: That is a good idea. Which movie theater?

Me: It doesn't matter.

Mom: But which does she go to?

Me: AMC, most of the time.

Mom: Forget it, I'm not schlepping all the way over there to get a damn gift certificate.

That gift didn't do anything for me.

I anticipate fodder for this blog will come at a machine gun pace in the next few weeks. Here's why: for my parents' birthdays (which fall 3 days apart from one another) I bought them a Roku. I'm sure, dear reader, you don't need an explanation as to why. I mean, it's a good gift. But my parents left it in the box for about four months. This wasn't so surprising, since they acted as though they'd unwrapped a water bug when I first gave it to them.

Eventually, after it was hooked up and functional, my father entered a fugue-like state and wouldn't move from the recliner because he couldn't stop watching Laurel and Hardy via Netflix. Then he latched onto documentaries on prisons (don't get me started). Then he found documentaries on Orthodox Jews. I don't know what he's focused on now, but it's like cutting an electrical umbilical cord to get him out of the recliner and away from the television.

So I spoke with my mother this morning about her Chanukah gift. I told her it wasn't extravagant. She said, "I don't expect anything big, Rebekah, you already got us the Roku this year, and in the past you've given me wonderful things." This would have been not only a sufficient but also beautiful and appropriate response. Not surprisingly, she didn't stop there.

"I mean, the Roku doesn't do anything for me, really. I never use it. It was a nice thought, though."

You must have been gifted.

My mother and her mother don't get along. That's a generous description of the relationship, really. I don't have an enormous amount to say in this post, because their conversation was brief.

"Ah-choo." (My mother sneezed.)

"What?" (My grandmother is hard of hearing. She's hard of everything, really. Especially of human compassion.)

"Nothing. I sneezed."

"You said something."

"No. I sneezed."

"You're a liar. You were lying when you came out of the womb."