“For $250 I won’t even remember your nose when the reporters ask me what happened, Mr. Malden…”
I loved Brett on Match Game, but I have to admit that it would take about two extra testicles for me to sleep with her, even if I were straight…
Well, as I’m sure he himself is salaried as well, I bet he’d LOVE to hear the next idea YOU come up with at 2:30 AM.
:rolleyes:
Hehehehehe…I wish I had your #. And knew French. That sounds like a totally fun conversation!
(once)
sigh…
Sadly, if there was something I felt he needed to know at 1:30 in the morning, he would expect me to inform him. The man has no life.
Simple and easy solution from us is to leave the answering machine on and monitor the incomming calls. We rarely if ever answer the phone during business hours [8 am to 9 pm] because a- we dont really need to buy siding or investment property somewhere and b- we have cell phones and anybody we want to speak with has the number=) and rarely do we ever answer the phone at night because we are either asleep, or people who really need us call the cell phones.
Sorry, unless the place of business is on fire, I really dont need to speak with anybody from work so urgently they cant leave me voice mail or an email at work. Well, if I was working that is … but the same goes for mrAru.
If it was the boss calling at 230, he would get the answering machine.
A few weeks ago, my mother called me at 5:30 in the morning. This is substantially earlier than this walrus cares to wake.
The first words out of her mouth were: “Hi, honey, I’m in Illinois, and I thought I’d call and say hi. I’m going to go see Grandma today.”
Me: Are either of you in the hospital? Or on fire?
Mom: No… I—
Me: Then why the hell did you call me so early.
Mom: [confused] But, it’s 7:30.
Me: [through clenched teeth] In. Illinois. It is.
And then I hung up. She apologized later, but, come on, woman! Time zones. Live 'em, learn 'em, love 'em.
Jesus, Jemima, Gepetto and Jehosaphat in a Jaundiced Giant Jalope… I’m not even ON this damned trip and it’s an ordeal. They left today and so far the score’s ONE/ONE Sister-Mama.
ROUND ONE (first blood): I had a major stomach upheaval today and actually left work early for it, thinking I’d go home and chill a bit. Instead I get a call at 4:45 p.m. from my sister. “Jon, I need you to meet us somewhere in Birmingham about 6:30. You know Little Yankeeville better than I do, where’s a good place to meet us that’s not too much traffic?”
Well, may I ask why I’m meeting you in Birmingham? Is something wrong?
“Oh take a wild running guess. She’s already off and running. Says she won’t go to Dollywood because Mardi” (my mother’s obese rat terrier) “is making her feel too guilty about putting him in the kennel, and besides they’re getting ready to close. But the reservations are for places that don’t allow dogs. But she said if you would take him for a few days she could go.”
I really don’t mind keeping Mardi- he’s a sweet benign growth of a dog who as long as you pay him some attention, toss him a few pounds of meat per day and walk him he’s not really any problem, except that my own dog (Ollie), the half-Jack Russell/half-rat terrier/half-sane little electron beast won’t leave him alone. BUT I can’t stand being guilted into it. On the other hand, my mother really needs a vacation and I sure as hell don’t want it to be with me. On the other hand, I had volunteered to take Mardi with me when I saw her last Sunday and she said “No”, that she’d just leave him in a kennel, and now I have to drive 120 miles roundtrip to pick up a dog when ordinarily I’d be working until 6:30 anyway and I’m going to have to stop at Rest Areas going and coming because of a (pardon the TMI) shitefest happening and Alabama Interstate Rest Areas are scary enough in daylight. (At night it’s 30 soccer dads with accents and lisps all just happening to be circling the Tom’s Peanuts machines and the bad part is that I’m the best looking one of them.)
Anyway, fine, I’ll come get the damned dog. The alternative is having to listen to my mother kvetch about not being able to go anywhere and how it’s all that damned dog’s fault and yadda yadda until one of us is dead. (If you’re asking “Why don’t you just tell your mother to grow up”, oooh… you don’t know my mother; what she lacks in ration she makes up for in emotional and literal firepower.) So I suggested we meet at the Barnes & Noble Summit location off I-459.
So I made the trip, answered the cell phone 21 times in 60 miles (“Where are you now?” I’m on I-59 in a traffic jam “Where are you now?” Three miles from said traffic jam “Where are you now?” I’M ON I-459 JUST GOT ON I’LL BE THERE WHEN I GET THERE! “Where are you now?” ISRAEL, KATHY, I’M IN ISRAEL… MASADA IS TO MY LEFT AND THERE’S A SYNAGOGUE’S FRIED CHICKEN ON MY RIGHT, I DON’T THINK I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE QUMRAN EXIT BACK BY THE GALLERIA!). I saw the family for five minutes, while thinking about the family walked in and (absolutely true) bought the “Guide to Literary Agents” and then drove back to Tuscaloosa, stopping at one (1) truck-stop and one (1) rest-area on the way back.
ROUND TWO: My mother called a few minutes ago. “We’re in Guntersville. When she said we’d be spending the night in Guntersville I thought she meant in the Lodge but hell no, she means a damned Holiday Inn. Why go all the 30 miles off the Interstate to Guntersville if you’re gonna stay in a Holiday Inn just like you can stay in off the Boaz exit? And would you believe…”
ANOTHER PHONE CALL I put my mother on hold and it’s my sister on the other line.
Now, my mother is calling from the motel room to bitch about my sister. My sister is calling from the parking lot of the motel to bitch about my mother. Sweet JESUS ON HIS CROSS COVERED IN MAPLE SYRUP, IF YOU TWO WANT TO BITCH ABOUT EACH OTHER JUST ONE OF YOU OPEN THE DOOR!!!
My sister’s beef: my mother’s inappreciative and just thinks that she (my sister) should pay perfectly good money for a resort lodge when there’s nothing to see at night anyway. My mother’s beef: they could have saved time going to an Interstate motel, AND my sister booked a room with a king sized bed and a pull out sofa. My mother’s refusing to sleep on the sofa because in the first place she has back problems and in the second place “I’m 71 years old and I don’t want to!” Frankly, I’m with my mother on this one.
My mother wanted to get her on room, but my sister is bitching about that. “She’s always complaining about how she can’t afford to do anything now she’s retired and here she wants to go out and pay $65 for a MO-tel room when she’s already got one! I told her, Hell, I’ll sleep in the king bed with her and my husband will sleep on the pull out but she won’t do it.”
Why don’t you rent another room for her, or rent a room with two double beds?
'My husband’s six and a half feet tall, he can’t sleep in a regular bed. And why should I spend my hard earned money on another motel room when we used to sleep five and six in a room when we were kids on vacation."
And boy those were some fun times let me tell ya… especially with the dogs we smuggled in.
So my mother was being unreasonable about the dog, my sister’s being unreasonable about the sleeping arrangements, the vacation goes through Monday and it’s only four hours old. Oh, and Dollywood is closed Sunday and Monday. The best thing I can say is a quote from CHESS: “Thank God I’m just watching the game, controlling it…”, cause I’d be as neurotic as the terrier if I actually had to be in that room (which if I were I’ve no doubt my sister would think nothing of asking me to share the pullout with my mother and then not understanding why I’m in therapy.)
One of my idiot coworkers once called a client in Hawaii…when it was 10 am in Illinois. The client told my coworker he was awake already. I’m sure he was just being polite - god knows if someone had called me that early, I would have had a conniption. I used to live in California and once lost it at a telemarketer who woke me up at 6.30 on a Saturday. LOOK AT WHAT TIME ZONE YOU’RE CALLING, DIPSHIT.
I’m glad I’m the one who lives in the east and my mom is the one in the west, because if it were reversed, I know she would call me at all kinds of bizarre times. I’ve lived in Chicago for over two years and every. single. time. I talk to her, she thinks I’m in Eastern time. “Oh, it’s 7 there, right?” “It’s 6.” “Oh, you’re not in Eastern?” “Nope, still Central. Just like the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that.” (Okay, I don’t say that part.) Since her rule is no calling after nine, I am assured of no phone calls after eight.
Why? I am curious.
I work at home, so a friend calls at 10 am.
Helloooooo(sleepy voice)
Her; “Are you still sleeping? Most people are up by now.”
:mad:
You know, we were all hoping you’d say something like that. Yay, stories!
Settles in with coffee…oooh! Another Sampiro tale! How are the dogs getting along?
Ivylad has to catch sleep when he can due to his back. I’ve got it so he remembers to turn his cell phone off during the day so it won’t wake him up. Og bless his mother, the woman can talk for an hour without saying a word (she also likes to watch commercials and chat during the actual show, but that’s another story) but thankfully he has two sisters she can call if needed.
They’re getting along more or less fine. Mardi (my mother’s dog) is an obese total Beta-dog who would be played by a very meek Ethan Supplee in a live action human rendition, while my baby Ollie is a thoroughly spoiled Brownian motion Major Alpha who, though he’s named for Oliver Hardy (because he was born on the street where Hardy grew up) bears an incredible resemblance to Odie would actually be played by Jim Carrey with enormous prosthetic ears and he loves to torment Mardi. Worst thing happened just a few minutes: I sat down on the staircase to talk to the boys, Mardi crawled into my lap and started getting cuddly (he LOVES attention), which was fine except Ollie decided he wanted in on it, pushed his dolphin like snout between my ample belly and Mardi and in the process of getting into my lap knocked Mardi down the stairs. We had a talk and Mardi (who wasn’t hurt) got lots of extra attention while Ollie had seizures and howled like a Banshee but otherwise they’re good. (Sleeping arrangements: you couldn’t squeeze typing paper between me and Ollie in bed- he’s a total cuddler- while Mardi, who’s not as mobile and lives with my mother who has a higher than average bed, sleeps under the bed; I’ve tried helping him up onto the mattress but he prefers it his way.)
As for the vacation: they stopped for a while yesterday in Scottsboro, AL, the Unclaimed Baggage Capitol of the World, to do some shopping and an argument broke out over a print of fighting cocks (you can’t make this stuff up) that my mother wanted to buy but my sister thought was too bloody and not worth $25. My mother (her’s is the only version of the story I have) reminded her “It’s my money and my house and some of my favorite memories of childhood are of my grandfather taking me to cockfights” and Kathi basically said “Okay fine” in a huff and mumbled something about budgeting and my mother’s inability to (which is absolutely not true- my mother is actually really good at saving money, she’s just not neurotically stingy like my sister). My mother got mad, put the cockfighting print back, and then wouldn’t get it or allow my repentant (or at least “My God, What have I done?” sister to get it for her) and the trip resumed, so the moral of the story is that I’ll be going to Scottsboro to get my mother’s Christmas present which hopefully somebody else with fond childhood memories of homicidal roosters won’t beat me too.
A friend of mine at work who I was telling some of these stories to asked me “Why do you answer your phone when you can see it’s your mother or sister calling?”. Two reasons: one is they’ll just keep calling, and the other is morbid curiosity.
Plus, what in the world would you write about without these two in your life? 
I admit this is exactly what I was thinking, but it sure provides the rest of us with entertainment!
Do you ever get a break?
Even when I was a lurker, I’ve enjoyed your crazy family.
Today’s only update: My mother on the cell-phone while my sister is pumping gas:
“I’m a hostage to her damned color quest.” Explanation: My sister, having checked out of the cabin where they stayed during their visit to Dollywood, decided to go find some changing foliage which, this having been an unusually dry year, the foliage simply isn’t as colorful as in years past. My mother has said several times “I’ve never understood the concept of a Fall Foliage tour- if you haven’t seen red and orange and yellow before then you should look 'em up and if you have then you don’t need to drive hundreds of miles”.
In any case, they were “somewhere in the mountains in North Carolina hundreds of miles from [my mother’s cockatiel] Eddie” looking for color. “I’ll be so damned glad when she finds a color she likes and we can turn around and go home. If she’ll just let me know what color she’s looking for I’ll call ahead and see if I can arrange it, and you hadn’t lived till you’ve been in the back seat going over mountains with your sister driving.” (Actually I have, as I reminded her: I’ve ridden over the much higher, much scarier Rockies with my mother driving while she was chain smoking and pissed off at my father- that’s why I got my first gray hair at 15.)
On my sister’s side, my mother can be a cantankerous travelling companion, especially if there’s not a set itinerary and anything involves walking. On my mother’s side, I’ve been on vacation with my sister and she is terrible about hijacking everybody on the trip to go on some timekilling search for some Questing Beast that only she gives a damn about and then decides five minutes before she gets there she’s not really interested in anyway and turning around (examples: taking up a full day that could have been spent in a room on the beach in Florida to go check out investment property at a particularly ugly beach that’s 40 miles from anywhere that she read about in the back of a magazine to see if there’s investment property available and if so for how much, or taking up an entire day I’d much preferred to have spent in Savannah to go see Jeckyll Island, a way overrated attraction [and really ugly beack] in the first place and one that she didn’t even get to until 5 pm on a Sunday when anything that may have been interesting was closed.)
Meanwhile I’m trying to figure out the trick to walking two dogs at once, especially when one has severe ADHD. So far I haven’t found it and continue the one-at-a-time-method. Near as I can figure, it works best if you use two retractable leashes and keep ADHD dog on a very short leash while the fat neurotic one runs ahead at a distance.
(contented sigh)
Sampiro, if you ever wrote a book it would be one of my favorites. I’m home today and not feeling so well, and your post was just what I needed.
Off to bed now. Thankyouthankyouthankyou for giving me a lift.
Dopers, I’m willing to chip in some money a couple of times a year to send Sampiromom and Sampirosis on a trip just so we can get some stories. Anybody else with me?
I just knew this was gonna be good. I cannot wait to hear about the trip home.
Heh – Sampirosis sounds like some sort of disease, doesn’t it? Maybe a degenerative condition. 
And yet, there’s Mom, along for the ride.
I’m beginning to think that your sister is the main character of a novel (this chaos is always swirling around her) and that the rest of you are minor characters. At least you get to be Ishmael, the narrator.