Eliza Barker, matriarch of the Barker multimedia conglomerate, caused “family drama” last week when she off-handedly mentioned at a reunion dinner that her 22-year-old granddaughter Tiffany Barker had failed to “call her grandmother for over three months.” This turned their three-month passive-aggressive text chain into passive-aggressive resignation, as neither party cared to acknowledge that phones, contrary to geriatric belief, can be dialed on either end of a relationship.

“Our cycles just don’t match up the same way as they did when I was younger,” Tiffany whispered to her uncle. “I’m busy now. Where once I existed in the blissful sunlight of youth — both literal and figurative — I now come alive at night. And she’s asleep by the time 7:30 ‘Jeopardy’ ends.

“All I make anymore are business calls; it’s hard running a successful branch of my grandmother’s multimedia empire. But it’s not like I’m not trying; I have personnel to handle taking calls in case she calls. I do occasionally reminisce about bygone times when Grandmother and I marveled in the local library.”

Eliza, however, is taking a more dire view of the lack of verbal communication between the once inseparable duo, going so far as the dangerous triple text.

“Tiffany, are you okay? Just wonderin’. It has been awhile since we last communicated, please call me.

“Please, Tiffany, I am having trouble with using my phone and you were always so good at the computers.”

Written by: Jacob Aguirre