B.P.S.S.

”What an ungrateful, sexist bpss you are! No More Key Lime Cheese Pie for YOU! I don't rate an invite to shoot?”

So said my [evil] step mother Holly in the comments of my last post. A friend of hers inquired about the BPSS moniker. This was the first time that I had seen it, but I knew immediately what it represented. Holly has in the past referred to me as a SNSS: Snot-Nosed Step Son. I put up with it because… you know—family.

On Wednesday of this week, she showed me her new acquisition: a T-Mobile camera phone. Considering that she had been using a standard old non-folding basic-with-service-activation phone, this was a mighty leap in her level of electronics sophistication.

I say this, by the by, while remaining the last person in Texas without a cell phone. Other than an early ‘90s vintage dinosaur with a dead battery and no service that I keep stowed in my glove box with a car charger cord for emergencies (911 can be reached by any cell phone even though it does not have activated service. I mostly use it for calling in drunk drivers), I don’t own, nor have I ever owned, a cell phone. But this doesn’t mean that I’m a complete Luddite—I know how to use technology, but at this point in my life don’t need the extra bills or complications. Soon, but not just yet.

At any rate, as I ooh’d and ah’d over her new phone, I asked her if she’d taken any pictures with it yet. She answered that she had not, as she hadn’t yet read the directions, and went on to find the directions book for me to look at. The natural masculinity in me of course found this quite distasteful, and I restrained myself from flinging the instruction booklet across the room. It only went beyond the far end of the couch. Directions! Bah. I found the appropriate icon on the phone for the camera, took a couple of pictures, and sent them to her email. I then went to take a nap before class. That night, I returned from a good class, and asked to borrow the phone to call my wife (long distance, but free on her plan). In the spare bedroom, after telephoning my wife, I found that Holly had deleted the self-portrait of me that I had installed to her phone’s desktop and screen saver. Well, we can’t have that, now! So I installed a picture of myself with my left index finger buried to the second knuckle up my left nostril. I then returned the phone to my stepmother with my thanks. I’m ashamed to say that I had no patience, and after she tucked it away without comment, I found it necessary to compliment her on her phone’s customization. As I walked away to pour myself a cold beverage, I heard her satisfying exclamation.

BPSS, of course, stands for Booger-Pickin’ Step Son. Johnny Fever would be proud.

By the way, she’s since found herself motivated to learn all manner of stuff about her phone, now. Heh. Glad to be of service, ma’am.