Ring ring
“Hello?”
“Hi Dad!”
“Brett, how are you?”
“I’m…”
“ELLIE. BRETT’S ON THE PHONE. ELLLLLLLLLLIE!”
“fine, thanks. How are you?”
“ELLIE! IT’S BRETT. PICK UP THE PHONE.”
“I’m here. Hi Brett.”
“Hi Mom. What are you two doing?”
“Nothing today. Can you believe it?”
“Well, every day is a Sunday for you, so yeah.”
“Your sister is really excited to see you. Isn’t it great that we will overlap for a day? How are you getting to the airport? What time is your flight?”
“I booked my tickets a long time a go and I don’t remember the flight times. I haven’t even thought about that stuff yet. The trip isn’t for two more weeks. Hey, thanks for sending the check for Drew’s birthday.”
My parents haven’t sent actual gifts to their grandchildren in years. They send a check to me; I buy presents and tell them what they got them. They do send a card with barely legible handwriting.
“You got him a hex bug set. Also, um, thanks for sending the article on credit cards with the best rewards. I especially appreciated the areas that you underlined in pencil. “
“Don’t pay any fees though!”
“Okay Dad.”
“What is the price of gas out there?”
“I don’t know Dad. I run low on gas, I pull in to the nearest gas station and fill it up. I pay whatever it costs.”
“How can you not know what gas costs?”
“I thought I just explained that. Get this. I have no idea how much a gallon of milk is either.”
“Beeeel.”
When my mom gets mad at my dad, she acquires an accent from a completely unidentifiable origin. Bill becomes Beeeeeel.
“It doesn’t matter what gas costs in Colorado! So when we get to Chicago, we want to go see the Marilyn Monroe statue by the Tribune building. It is apparently quite the talk of the town.”
Beeeeeeeel piped in with, “It’s 26 feet tall.”
“You two really have run out of interesting things to do in your retirement, haven’t you?”
“It’s the famous pose of her with her skirt flying up.”
“Yeah, I figured Dad. I can’t wait to see where you stand for the photo.”
Click click
“Hold on hon, that’s another call. Bill, hang up the phone.”
Nothing happens. I can hear my dad breathing. Click click
“Beeeeeel! Hang up the phone so I can answer the call.”
“Okay.”
Click click
“Hello?”
“It’s still me, Mom.”
“Hold on.”
Click click
“Hello?”
“Hi Mom. Still me.”
“BEEEEEEL! DID YOU HANG UP THE PHONE?”
Click click
“I can let you go Mom. Sounds like you are expecting an important call.”
“No honey, hold on.”
Click click
“Hello?”
“Hola! Donde esta el banyo? I’d like a pepperoni pizza please. Hey, is your refrigerator running? If so, you better go catch it!”
“Brett!”
“Mom, you need to get rid of that call-waiting. You can never work it anyway and what in the world is so important that you can’t miss?”
“I can work it when your father isn’t on the other phone. I could hear him breathing!”
“Well, yeah, I heard him too. But that is a good thing he is still breathing, right?”
Ding dong
“Hold on. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL! ANSWER THE DOOR. Hold on.”
“Mom, I’ll let you go. I’m almost to the office anyway.”
I was nowhere near the office
“No hold on. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL!”
I hear a faint muffled discussion as I imagine my Dad shuffling to the door in his slippers
“Mom, I have to go. The boys are great. Work is fine. The new place is good. Life is good. Go help Dad answer the door.”
“Okay honey. We can’t wait to see you. Bye bye.”
I hear her yelling “BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL” as I say goodbye and hang up
If I turn completely into my parents, please karate chop me in the neck.
I have bad news for you: We all turn into our parents eventually...some just do it sooner than others!
ReplyDeleteHow come nobody told me about that statue when I was in Chicago?
ReplyDeleteEvery time I talk to my Mom on the phone it turns into an hour of my life that I'll never be able to get back. I love her and all, but fuck that woman is chatty!
ReplyDeleteOMG....you must be my brother...a brother I didn't know I had....my parents never told me I had a brother!?!
ReplyDeleteBecause that is EXACTLY how all my conversations with my parents go too! I mean EXACTLY! The price of gas...everything!
Wow. I feel your pain...brother!
Yes. Sometimes I have important "meetings" to go to at work while talking (for the last 45-effin'-minutes-mom-I'm-at-work-for-God's-sake!) to my Mom.
ReplyDeleteI love love love these "Chats With Wow's Parents." Keep 'em coming! The chats, I mean....
I thought I was being deceptively clever coming up with the "I'm just pulling in to my driveway/work/the store now so I gotta go!
ReplyDeleteI wonder when they'll start to catch on.
I like your parents. They are cute. And I'm glad they are yours... and not mine.
ReplyDeleteAm I the only adult in the world that likes their parents? Because I really like mine. I mean, they're a little passive agressive with each other and my dad sometimes leaves the (gas) stove on and my mom sometimes locks the keys in the car with the engine running, but I still really like them. We talk about NPR and politics and the latest Card novel and art house cinema. And how to potty-train the three-year-old. And why the 20-year-old has all her stuff in the house but isn't sleeping here yet.
ReplyDeleteI should totally start blogging about my family.
"Call Waiting"... what was EVER f*#king wrong with people hearing the "busy" signal??
ReplyDeleteCute post, Breeeeeet (that's my Flight of the Concords accent). I've been trying to email you back but there is something wrong with my server. I wanted to thank you for your kind words.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to your frustration with your parents, but as I'm sure you know, I'd rather take a day being frustrated with them than not having them in my life at all.
Have a great visit with them.
R
My mother has the same obsession with gas prices. Every time she visits me we have a ten minute long conversation about how low they are, and then - no matter how full my tank is - she tries to make me pull over and fill up my tank when she spies a station that is about 3 cents less a gallon. Then, despite the fact I make twice her salary, she attempts to pay for it.
ReplyDeleteMan, I love her annoying self.
Thats the same thing I go through while on the phone with my mother and her husband. ugh. WTF is it with the price of gas with parents? My mom knows the price of gas in every town she visits.
ReplyDeleteMy BF just described a conversation very similar to this with his parents too. It's just destined to be that we all shrink up into cute, frail AARP members who can't manage how to use a phone or answer the door.
ReplyDeletePS: From now on when I'm exasperated, I'm going to start calling things "BEEEEEEL".
Mystery solved
ReplyDeleteExcellent stuff.
ReplyDeleteMy Nan (who keeps her extra-big mobile phone next to her landline phone so she doesn't lose it) has just been sent a wireless router, which she's very pleased with.
She has no idea what it is.
@eva: Hopefully it won't happen to me until I'm 97.
ReplyDelete@IT: My parents are in the know.
@candice: An hour!? Clearly you need to only talk to her from the road so no matter how much time you have, you actually don't have much time.
@dogsdontpurr: Where the heck have you been, blast from the past?! What kind of sibling are you?!
@dawn: My mom once commented on how I always seem to call them on the way to meetings.
@vapidvixen: You are indeed clever. Just keep changing up the excuse for why you gotta go. Gas, work, driveway, meth lab, etc...
@randomgirl; Good thing I've already been married and may never subject anyone to inlaw status again.
@goldengirl: I like my parents. In fact, I love them. But it doesn't mean they don't drive me bat-shit crazy some times. A lot. All the time.
@robert: I know. I have it on my cell because I mix work and personal and so that I can be aware of kid emergencies. But my parents have no real urgent things going on in their lives, especially because they plan everything nine months out.
@consciously: I love FOC! I think your last post was incredibly sweet and heartfelt. I can't imagine exactly what you are going through and you know that even when I write about my parents I wouldn't trade these moments for the world. Keep doing what you are doing!!
@startickler: My parents have long since stopped paying for anything! In fact, they get angry if I pay for anything too because they tend to think everything is over priced. They can spend hours comparison shopping, coupon clipping and discussing price differentials. It can take days to buy bread.
@tam: My parents like to visit grocery stores in foreign cities to compare prices on household staples.
@YLIDHAG: Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel! It is quite fun to yell.
@kimmie: Do you like tacos?
@jules: Oh man, I should write about my mom's computer woes. Mouse clicking is like threading a needle. She only recently figured out how to download photos from email. She was always just printing out the whole email with the picture embedded in the copy. So her fridge would have entire email messages with pictures buried inside for everyone to see.
Oooooh - lovely! Let's be them when we grow up and PURPOSLY script phone calls with our kids for maximum frustration! I envision you asking your grown son if he's regular, and suggesting your favorite fiber supplements, and recounting details of your last prostate exam...
ReplyDeleteAnd if you want, I'll help you with answer the door.
I usually take Xanax before calling old family members! When I call my aunt (my mom's sister), she always puts the phone on speaker so both she and my uncle can talk to me at the same time...as in they both have mouths moving simultaneously. They both yell too. They both cut me off mid-sentence. These phone calls alsu usually last about an hour. Yup...Xanax is a must for these adventures!!
ReplyDeleteEverything about this made me happy.
ReplyDeleteNo kidding.
Hilareous.
ReplyDeleteMy mom does that all the time...I now Hang up on Her :)
It's so scary when we get little glimpses into our potential futures like that! My dad doesn't even know how to work call waiting, so if I call and it just keeps ringing and ringing, I know he's on with someone else.
ReplyDeleteBwahahahahahahahahahaha! I think you'll be a different kind of interesting old fart. (OM)
ReplyDelete