I try to be a good daughter but some days I just don’t get the job done.

I call my mother everyday. Please don’t be impressed.  I do so because the two times I didn’t call her she fell and had to be hospitalized.  Call it Karma or coincidence or call it my mother throwing herself to the ground in a “she’ll be sorry she didn’t call ” move but I learned my lesson.

Yesterday when I called she informed me that there was lots of excitement on her block.  One of her neighbors down the street had died and she and her next door neighbor Margaret had been outside watching all the goings on.

I was talking to her as the body was being removed and she said “I need you to call and find out what happened to her.”

Please let me explain.  My mother thinks because I have a cell phone and a computer that I have access to every piece of information in the universe!

“Mother,  there isn’t a number I can call to get information about your dead neighbor.  Do you even know her name? What is her address?”

“We can’t remember her last name and I’m not walking all the way down there to get her address. Can’t you just get on the computer and find out?”

“No Mother I can’t. What am I supposed to Google “what happened to mother’s dead neighbor?” I think even Google is going to need more information than that.”

“Well find the obituary. Surely you can do that.” Please note the sarcasm. That sentence in her mind ended with I guess Miss Fancy Pants with a computer doesn’t know everything.

“Mother, I can search the paper  but all it’s going to say is that she died at her residence. I have a feeling you are wanting more detail than that.”  What she wants is details like was her house clean and what she was wearing. Did she have her teeth in ? Was there foul play? This is information she can use to wow her neighbor Margaret.  Died at her residence is not going to impress anybody.

” Mother, I will do my best. I will start my own private internet investigation tomorrow. Did she have any family?”

“Yes a daughter but she never called. That’s probably why she ended up dead.”

Well played Mother. Well played.