I Love Them Dearly...

All I hear lately is gloom & doom from my parents. They go on and on about, “When we die”, along with, “We’re not gonna be around forever you know.” I totally get the ‘inevitable’, but what gets me is, they used it to their sick little warped advantage. So I twist it around and say, “You know, if I get hit by a truck tomorrow or stabbed by some burglar”----and automatically they gasp with horror and scream, “STOP THAT NOW!!!” I mean, if I’m traumatizing them, wouldn’t they stop to think for a minute that they’re doing the same thing to me? My dad insists that when he dies,  that I keep him in the huge freezer so we can still collect his social security checks. Beautiful concept. “Hey ma, can you grab me the frozen chicken next to dad’s left arm?” I mean....really? What if the power goes out? With all this “death talk”, oddly enough nobody in our family talks about the ‘what ifs’ and ‘what to do’ plans when our parents decide to jump out of the first floor window. I love them dearly.

Today was an interesting visit. My mother keeps insisting that she wants to go on the same phone plan that my sister just recently got. It’s a plan where you can call anywhere in the U.S. for free, as long as you stay with them for a yearly contract. I set her up, but to my surprise, the customer service rep threw in voice mail. My mother could barely even figure out the answering machine that I got for her 15 years ago. I get a phone call from her this morning asking, “Deb, why is it when I pick up the phone, there’s a busy signal and then a dial tone.” I wanted to shoot myself in the foot. I knew it was a message waiting that will never be retrieved. I had to call the phone company up to ask them to remove it. She still has a hard time with her caller i.d. and call waiting. When I’m on the phone, and someone else is beeping in, you’ll hear silence (her checking the caller i.d. without telling you), and then she’ll say, “Oh it’s your sister!” This means: “I am hanging up with you because I don’t know how to click over.” I love her dearly.

My father yells from the other room, “Uhh Deb, can ya’ help me widdis’ voice mail on my cell phone? I have a message waiting!” For the two years he has had this cell phone, he has not checked or received any voice mails? So I call his number on his phone and it asks me for a security code. “Dad, what’s your code?” He looks at me puzzled. “My code? Whaddya’ tawkin’ abow’???” Another technical call to the phone company which was the highlight of my day. These people seriously need a can and a string and be done with it. I love them dearly.