Mother's Bad Date __top__ May 2026

I knew it was bad before she even opened the door. I heard the sigh—the particular sigh of a woman who has just watched a man eat soup with a dessert spoon. She walked in, kicked off her heels, and went straight to the freezer for the emergency pint of pistachio ice cream.

“He also said,” she continued, “that he once broke up with a woman because she named her cat after a punctuation mark. The cat was named ‘Comma.’” mother's bad date

“Surprise me.”

My mother doesn’t date often. After the divorce, she said she was “recalibrating,” which is a very mom way of saying she’d rather read a mystery novel in a bathrobe than suffer small talk with a stranger. But her friend Carol insisted. “You’re a catch, Linda. A whole marlin.” I knew it was bad before she even opened the door