I'm an atheist. My mother's ultra-religious. She's always trying to convert me, and claiming when I "grow up" (I'm 25) I'm going to become a preacher or something.

So, for the last 10 years or so, every time we're in the same place at Easter, she gives me one of these chocolate prayer hands, which I tease her mercilessly about. It's become a family tradition. I always forget the jokes I make, but they often revolve around how the fingers are elongated and weird, or how that in combination with the hand being tiny and black makes me think I'm eating the severed hands of a starving Ethiopian child.

This year I get an obvious idea. I call her, tell her it's urgent. She comes over, I hold up the chocolate hand. "It's a message! I got a message from on high through the chocolate prayer hands mom, look!" I turn it towards her to reveal that I've been off all the fingers on the hands except for the middle one. "I think it's for you!"