“Using nicotine is unequivocally very bad for you. It’s also, unfortunately, what gets me through my days.” —Emily Gould, from her essay “The Secret Shame of Smoking Moms”
Moms don’t want trinket dishes for Mother’s Day—they want cigarettes. A mom would rather have a bag full of cigarette butts than a fluted trinket dish. That said, moms do want ashtrays. So they will use that little dish to ash the cigarettes you will buy her.
Moms don’t want smocked dresses. Moms do NOT want to fold their pendulous breasts into elasticated smock-front dresses. Moms do NOT want thin pleats of fabric expanding and contracting across their pendulous breasts. Please do NOT buy these for the moms.
Listen very carefully: Moms don’t want a pendant that says MAMA or a sweatshirt that says I’M IN MY MOM ERA. Moms want to lie on the hammocks smoking cigarettes, listening to the Doobie Brothers. Please consider buying cigarettes for moms who have hammocks but no cigarettes, and hammocks for the cigarette moms.
A mom has, perhaps, found herself on the threshold between life and death. A mom has, perhaps, held a baby covered in vernix while her internal organs were shoved back in, or while a kindly midwife sewed her most tender bits back together while singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” to steel her nerves. A mom may opt to seek pleasure at whatever cost. Remember this as you buy a mom a pack of cigarettes while she waits outside the gas station, pretending to check her LinkedIn messages.
Some people look askance at the moms smoking cigarettes. I say we start allowing the moms to congregate with the skateboarders in front of 7-Elevens. Only not to vape. I understand some moms like to vape, but this should be discouraged. Instead, moms should enjoy pinching a cigarette between their pointer finger and middle finger and thumb, like a greaser—that is, a man from the movie Grease. Moms should be encouraged to try different ways of holding cigarettes to see which suits them best.
Moms definitely want you to take them to Friendly’s for Mother’s Day. “Smoking or non-smoking?” the maitre d’ will ask. Moms will look at you pleadingly, palms sweating on their Michael Kors wristlets. Soon thereafter, they’ll be gleefully ashing into their scrambled eggs, their buttered toast, and their clown sundaes.