when your own mama done forget you

Last week, my brother Tom attended a friend's birthday party, at a Stanford dorm. In the middle of singing the birthday song, his phone rang.

Tom: [stepping out into the hallway] Hello?

Our mother: [very loudly] Tom, can you hear me??

Tom: [walking down the hallway further from the party] I can hear you just fine. Can you hear me?

Mom: Hello? Hello? I'm using my desktop computer to dial to your phone! I can't hear what you're saying.

Tom: [louder] How about now?

Mom: That's better! Tom, I need your help. My laptop is showing a blue screen with weird characters, and it won't respond to any key presses! I already emailed Microsoft and they didn't reply with anything useful.

Tom: That just means the computer crashed. You need to reboot the laptop.

Mom: I pressed the power button and nothing happened.

Tom: You need to hold it down for 20 seconds.

Mom: [silence] ... Ah! There it goes! Okay, thank you. [distractedly, while typing keys on laptop] So how are you?

Tom: [walking back toward friend's room] Can I call you back later? It's my friend's birthday.

Mom: What was that? It's your birthday? Happy birthday to you!

...

My mother wanders off, and my dad comes on the line.

Tom: [extremely sadly] Dad... Was that really my mom?

Dad: Yup, that was your mom all right. (那就是你妈.)