I'm truly surprised at times that I'm able to function without having been in therapy most of my life. Case in point: yesterday morning.
Around 7:30am, I was minding my own business just Skyping (if you don't know the term, visit the Skype site for more info) with a friend on the other side of the globe. I believe I may have had a few beers at that point, but wasn't drunk by any means, so I do know that this indeed did happen... not to mention the fact that I have a witness on the other side of the globe, as previously mentioned.
I mean, yeah... drinking in the early morning hours when everyone else is still slumbering and/or getting ready for their day jobs probably isn't the most prudent thing to do, but I'd put in a few hours of editing before that and how else do you hang out with friends who are having a 3-day weekend in another country, I ask you? I mean, if you think about the cost of airfare alone that I was saving, it really was practical. Where was I? Oh, yeah... it was 7:30am.
That's when my phone rang. It was my mother, so figuring that it might be amusing for my far away friend, I muted his incoming Skype call and put my mother on speaker phone, so he could hear a slice of life on this side of the world. Little did I know what kind of introduction he was going to have.
My mother was calling because she thinks that I don't have anything better to do at 7:30am, apparently, and she wanted me to come pick her up from the tire place where she was going to leave her car to get fixed. However, she'd decided to stop at the grocery store first and get ice, which is why she needed me to pick her up, because the ice wouldn't last if she waited on her car.
Just as I was resigning myself to the fact that I'd have to go pick her up, I hear her exclaim, "Oh, no!" It was about then that I noticed the echo in her voice. Now, I'm quite accustomed to my mother calling me from places that no one wants to hear their mother. Mine calls from her bathroom all the time and I never know until she flushes, causing me to cringe. She knows I hate that, so she decided to stop telling me that she was doing that and just let me find out by the time I've already had some full conversation with her and it's too late to hang up.
She filled in the details. "I'm in the Kroger bathroom and I just realized there's no toilet paper!" Now, why on earth would she call me from there to talk about her tire situation, I'll never know. She switched the plan then.
"Can you drive over here and bring me some, please! There's none in here."
I tried to tell her just to do her best to grab some from another stall or to call out for someone there to assist her.
"No! It's too early in the morning and no one will hear me calling from the restroom, it's too far away. And I can't get up, or I'll make a mess."
While still trying not to laugh too much, I tried to suggest that toddling over to another stall isn't that bad, when she interrupted with the detail that sent this from amusing to totally absurd.
"I can't get up. I - I - I had diarrhea. It'll get everywhere."
I think I lost it at that point and put my forehead to my desktop and just couldn't stop the fits of giggles. So I repeated the story, pretending to get a better understanding of it, but really so that I could be sure my friend was benefiting from not missing the details.
"Is there someone there with you?" My mother is always suspicious that I've got various gentlemen callers who are paying me a visit or spending the night, so I guess my recap triggered her radar. I reassured her that no one was here. Yes, I lied, sort of... but how do I admit that I had someone talking over the internet when she still doesn't understand how email works?
She continued the story and I continued to listen with a mixture of horror and amusement.
"Well, if you don't come up here, then I'm going to have to take off one of my socks or something. And don't want to do that. They're my favorite pair!"
I think I snorted as tears were rolling down my face.
At that point she asked if I was drunk. I thought, "No, but here's my chance to throw her off the thought that someone else was listening in." I admitted to having had a few German beers at that point, to which she started in on how unhealthy and weird that is... until I reminded her of her daily bottle (and then some) of wine habit.*
"That's different. I have a lot of stress as a night-shift nurse and need it to go to sleep. Don't change the subject! Are you coming to help me or do I have to sacrifice a sock?"
Through my squealing fits of laughter, I managed to tell her that I was "too tipsy to drive" (not true, but I was too sleep deprived at that point... plus, it was funnier that way), and that she'd have to do her best to flag someone down there or go with Plan B.
She hung up, resigned to her fate. I returned to my call with my friend, turning up my audio volume and hearing some very amused giggles.
A little while later, the phone rang again. I took the same measures and put my speakers on mute to allow for covert listening, while I took her second call.
"I'm walking around the grocery store now, trying to decide if I should get ice or if I should bring my car in at all. I can't do both now, if you can't come get me. I'm sure that everyone in Kroger can see that I'm only wearing one sock."
I asked her why she didn't take off the other one as well while she was in there, but she apparently hadn't thought that far ahead.
"I am so sad. I love these socks, but I had to leave the other one behind in the sanitary napkin bin... somebody's going to be shocked to find that later. Plus it felt horrible."
I asked, "Why, was it scratchy wool or something?"
"No, it was very soft, that's why they're my favorites. But I'd worn them all night at work and - well - it was all wet from foot sweat. I feel dirty now."
Again, all I could do was lay my head down and laugh and laugh as the tears rolled again... and I do believe I was begging her to stop, because my stomach was hurting.
After that second call, both said friend and I were quite thoroughly amused and I realized that I had been handed an "instant blog," though admittedly, I did sit on this a little while, trying to decide if I wanted to gross everyone out or not. Obviously, it was just too good to pass up. My silent witness in this seemed no worse for the wear from the first-hand experience, but when I tried to retell it to another friend later that same morning, but he just kept repeating "please stop telling this story" long before it was finished.
As for my mother, she's still in mourning over her lost sock, and is hanging onto its sad, widowed mate as a memento of its fallen partner.
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