The Subtle Art of Bragging

My mom is very computer illiterate. In my mind, I imagine all moms having no operating knowledge of how the mysteries of computers and the Internet work. However, my friends sometimes casually say things like, "My mom emailed me this article," and I am always in shock. How can Baby Boomers, who thought that the advent of televisions in their home was a novelty, know how to use this newfangled contraption?

My mom is infamously bad with computers. The really endearing thing is that she really wants to learn but she never seems to really get the hang of it. It's almost as if she's Newland Archer in The Age of Innocence, as he poetically looks up at Countess Olenska's Paris apartment and says with such poignance, "Say I'm old-fashioned: that's enough." You see, like the ironically named Newland, my mother may as well belong to another time - a time where one used a slate and chalk to do long division math instead of calculators. Of course, this may all over the top metaphorizing, but you're probably used to my blog hyperbole.

Imagine my surprise when, I got this email from my "mom":

Dear Mariam,
I was able to able make it to NC.We both miss our medical student daugter. My fingers and my mind are somewhat exhausted after such a lengthy email.
yours Mom
ps your physician dad is saying hello

The joke here about the medical student daughter is that we often laugh at parents who subtly include their children's achievements into conversation. For example, "Johnny would come out to dinner, but he's got to go to the law school library and study." Now of course, said parent could just say, "Johnny has got to study," but by including "law school library" everyone knows that this kid is no ordinary Gen-Y slacker. It's sort of like that David Sedaris story "Ship Shape" in Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, where David and his mother overhear a lady at the Korean dry cleaners say, "My sister and I are visiting from out of town. I'd love to stay awhile longer and explore but my home - well one of my homes - is on the garden tour, so I've got to get back." Apparently, the Korean man had no idea what she saying, and merely nodded "the way you do when you're a foreigner and understand that someone has just finished a sentence."

Once, we met this guy who was a neurosurgeon, who went to Harvard undergrad and had a host of other impressive achievements. His parents were fawning over the Harvard experience and how Ulysses S. Grant had lived in his dorm room. My dad, not one to be outdone, said in a tiny voice,"Uh, Mariam likes English and writing?" as if this question/statement would impress the parents of a Ha-vuhd grad. For once, my parents were at a loss for bragging rights. Finally, my dad resorted to another technique, hyping himself up - "I exercise a lot, and I have successfully reduced my LDL merely through diet and physical activity." This statement just got lost in the conversation, and no one even heard it - since the parents were now going on about how the governor of their state had invited them to his daughter's society wedding and how they were thisclose to the VIP glitterati of society. Finally, the Qureshi family conceded defeat in this bragging war, and we just sat there and listened, silently fuming at why I wasn't smart enough to go to an Ivy League and consoling ourselves by saying, "Well, UNC is a public Ivy."

Now, that's not to say that I, myself, am immune to bragging in an underhanded fashion. For instance, I still cringe at how when I first got to medical school, I would subtly include my MedStart status into all conversations with strangers. For example, after an introduction with the Block 1 professors, I'd sidle up to an unfriendly stranger and say, "Yeah, CBC is so incredibly nice. Do you know she went to school with Jennifer Garner?" as if to imply, I've got the inside track to MCO, bitch, and CBC and I do each other's hair after school, so take that! Hopefully, I've learned how lame that is and no one wins friends by saying they are a MedStart student - they merely incur the wrath of other fellow medical students who get angry because you didn't take the MCAT.

--By Mariam, a medical student who is so incredibly busy these days with night calls. Oh crap, was that bragging again?