Mom's gifts for Mother's Day were practical but not perfect

Cut it out. Quit moaning about your mothers.

The next time I hear someone gripe about a mom, I'll shut them up by saying I wish I could have one more day with mine.

Today would be nice.

Not that Mother's Day was ever easy.

My father, brother and I were gift-impaired. We had a great knack for picking the wrong present.

There was the year my father splurged on a long-handled dandelion weeder.

"Look at this, kids!" he exclaimed in the garden aisle at Sears. "Amazing! Mom won't have to bend over any more!"

Hint: If your mother's a gardener, skip the weeder and go with flowers.

Another year he gift-wrapped a fire extinguisher, because my mother's car engine had recently burst into flames.

Practical, yes. A new car would have been nicer.

Then there was the Mother's Day we decided to serve breakfast in bed, something we'd seen the Donna Reed family do on TV.

The menu was simple: French toast.

We bought Arnold bread, because we believed that was what rich people ate. Next we mixed together milk and eggs.

"What else?" Dad asked helplessly.

"Something sprinkly, from a can," I replied, pointing to the spice rack.

Unfortunately, a 6-year-old doesn't know cinnamon from cilantro.

"That," I said, pointing to a little McCormick tin.

"Paprika!" my mother choked after her first bite of the curiously crimson breakfast treat. "Delicious."

A couple years later, I persuaded my dad to drop my younger brother and me at one of Trenton's downtown department stores.

We wandered hand in hand, searching for the perfect gift. We found it in a glass case filled with handkerchiefs. We wanted the only one embroidered with a leaping red animal.

Best of all, it had a dazzling rhinestone eye. If memory serves, it was less than a buck.

Buoyed by my Saturday shopping success, I stupidly showed the gift to the mean girl down the street - the one who'd pronounced my new pixie cut "dumb" and long hair, like hers, "divine."

I carefully lifted the lid on the box.

"Rudolph?" she shrieked. "You're giving your mother a Christmas gift on Mother's Day? No wonder it was so cheap."

I was horrified. And it was too late to take it back.

The next morning, my normally stoic mother looked like she was going to cry when she ripped off the wrapping paper as I was apologizing for the Christmas motif.

"This is NOT Rudolph," she said, holding it aloft. "It's the most beautiful handkerchief in the world. Don't listen to a word that horrible girl says."

My mom carried it everywhere for a while. Years later, when I cleaned out her dresser, I found that yellowed hankie on top of a pile of Mother's Day cards.

I'm looking at it now. You know what? It's not Rudolph.

So there, mean girl.

Haven't seen that witch since high school. I'm guessing she's the type of woman who gripes about her mother.

Don't be like her.

Kerry Dougherty, (757) 446-2306, kerry.dougherty@cox.net