My mother is not a happy person. She’s a marvel of modern medical technology. Things keep falling off and the doctors keep pasting them back on. Think Jamie Summers, except 64 and pissed off. Instead of using her bionics for good, my mother focuses her energy into darting off rage-crusted letters to unsuspecting customer service people.

Over the years, my mother has written massive missives to the likes of AT&T, P&G, Whirlpool, and thousands more. These letters are typed formally on her trusty IBM typewriter, artfully dotted with whiteout as she misspells an impressive litany of incredibly foul words. Perhaps my favorite was a letter she sent to Betty Crocker accusing “her” of secretly changing the brownie mix. My mother’s wrath knew no bounds as she accused Betty of killing her reputation as “the best brownie maker in Fulton County.” She went on to reserve a very special place in hell for Betty, one far more creative and “appropriate” to the, ahem, situation.

Now over the years, I have made the mistake of sending my mother gifts for mother’s days. Flowers, plants, cookies, pretty standard fare. The letters these gifts have inspired will someday be archived in the Smithsonian. I kid you not. My mother may well be the Hemmingway, nay Martin Amis, of customer service letters.

I provide the preceding as a backdrop for why I wrote the following card to accompany my mother’s day flower arrangement. Proflowers was gracious enough to provide me ample space to affix a special note to mom. And here’s what I had to say:

“Happiest Mother’s Day! I hope this year the flowers show up wilted, stink nasty, spread plague, promote pestilence, endanger wildlife, eat your cat, mock the mailman, marry beneath them, and do anything else that may possibly annoy you. With all my heart, I hope this inspires an all star letter to customer service.”