 | Everything Quinn |
 | Archive |
 | About |
 | Cast |
 | Links |
 | Other Writings |
 | Random Facts |
 | Home |
My mom stores her Christmas china at my house and she called me this morning to ask me to count her place settings. She forgets how many she has, and since my Aunt Marilyn died and we adopted my cousin Cathy's family into our celebrations, her count is more off than ever.
After Andy climbed the ladder and wrestled the boxes down from our garage rafters (and Baxter, in a movement of stunning stupidity, ran through the garage and under the door as it was closing, effectively making his own greatest fear a reality: separation from his People) I called my mom with the total.
"I'm on the phone with Aunt Connie. I'll call you right back."
I decided to call my sister Peggy, who had called while we were in the garage. A few minutes after we started talking, my other line beeped.
"Hang on," I said. "I think it's mom."
When I came back, I said, "Yeah, it was mom."
"She's off the phone with Aunt Connie already?"
"How did you know she was talking to Aunt Connie? Did you try calling her a few minutes ago, too? Jesus, we are one sick bunch. We need to disattach or something."
Peggy and I discussed what to get my parents for Christmas and after she severely poo-poo'd my idea ("Well, I'm not chipping in money for that") we started talking about Thanksgiving.
"Hey wait," I said. "I'll get mom on three-way calling so she can talk to us too."
"Oh!" Peggy breathed. "You can DO THAT?"
"Yes," I said. "It's the dawning of a new age of technology. Three-way calling is something we not only engage in regularly, it's something we do without gasping first. Hang on."
I put her on hold and dialed up my mom.
"Hi, it's me. Hang on. I have Peggy on three-way."
As I took the phone away from my ear to press the flash button, I could hear my mom saying, "ISN'T THAT EXPENSIVE???"
"Hello?"
"Hello!"
"Peggy?"
"Mom?"
"Amy?"
"John-Boy?"
"Are we all here?"
"Hello?"
"Jesus!"
The novelty gone and the cost of this call temporarily not the most pressing issue in her mind, my mom launched into a detailed description of one of our family members' recent medical difficulties. But there were not enough details for my sister who, despite my mom's statement that she'd only talked to my cousin for a few seconds, pressed for more information.
"But is there swelling?"
"When do they go back to the doctor?"
"Why is he taking so many aspirin?"
and the most sensitive:
"I'm so glad I decided not to have children! Our gene pool is really messed up."
"Yes," my mom agreed gravely. "It really is."
"Oh my god," I said. "Not everyone is messed up!"
"Yeah, I guess our family turned out pretty well," Peggy conceded.
"Well, I wouldn't say Danny did so good," my mom said dryly.
Danny is my brother who died in 1958 just before he turned two years old.
"OK, besides Danny, Mom."
After our conversation had covered all of the freshest family gossip, after we had debated (heatedly, I might add) which two family members were going to be in charge of putting my parents' patio furniture in the garage rafters that weekend--meaning, which two could my dad watch climb a ladder and hoist large furniture without having a stroke because they're doing it wrong...there is only one way to store the patio furniture, and that is the right way...however, the right way is tricky because it involves very careful, very meticulous wrapping of each piece of furniture in plastic and then stacking them in a complex pattern up in the rafters so that they do not shift during the winter lest they come to harm in some way...never will I forget the year that it was my brother Dennis and I who were designated Chair Putter Awayers and he was on the ladder...which is humorous to begin with as he is 6'4 and has the motor skills of a three-year-old...and I was shoving the unwrapped furniture at him and he was tossing sheets of plastic on top of it (and not around it as instructed) as he shoved the the furniture far, far back into the rafters where my 80-year-old father would never see it...and we were doing this very quickly, before our dad could come out to check on our work...and the faster he was cramming furniture and sort of pushing plastic sheets on it, over it, or just near it, whatever, just get rid of all of the furniture and all of the plastic and tell him the job has been completed... the harder I was laughing and the closer we came to wetting our pants together as we are known to do...
...after all of these discussions had petered out, the two of them began to discuss plans for cooking Thanksgiving dinner. I'm not even going to be at their celebration, I'm going to Andy's mom's house, so I tuned out pretty quickly, only catching small tidbits of their discussion.
"So I was in Jewel today and I didn't know what to do with myself..." my mom began.
"Mom, I have to get the turkey soon!" Peggy cried.
"I looked and looked and couldn't find any chili pepper...finally the woman at the service desk..."
"I hope it has enough time to thaw...don't they sell fresh turkeys at Jewel?"
"...and I decided that they just don't sell it in this part of the country...now what size turkey are you going to get?"
"I don't know...I don't want to go crazy...there are only ten of us..."
"Well, remember what I did that one year...I got two 13-pound turkeys and cooked both of them...I wanted to kill myself..."
"Mother, I am not getting TWO turkeys! But this weekend, I'm definitely going to get my shopping done..."
"Now Julie's bringing the potatoes, you're making the pies..."
"...but I'm not buying anything for the pies until you come up on Wednesday!..."
"OH MY GOD." I finally interrupted. "I want to hang up and get away from this conversation, but I CAN'T! Because I am the tie that is LINKING THE TWO OF YOU TOGETHER! Oh please! Please finish up and LET ME GO!"
Thankfully, the conversation turned to the West Wing and we were all able to participate again until we'd decided we'd had enough of each other.
"Well. We can talk tomorrow morning about Thanksgiving, Peggy. Amy, call me tomorrow and we'll figure out what to do with those dishes."
"OK, mom. I'll talk to you tomorrow. Oh, and Peggy...we need to finish talking about presents...call me tomorrow."
"OK. Talk to you guys tomorrow. Good bye."
"Goodbye."
"Goodbye."
I mean, really. Do you have people in your life like this?
|
|
|
Wanna be notified when I update? Send mail to amy@parsley.org and thou shalt receive!