Somehow, my mother manages to call me, every week, at the most inappropriate times. To head this off, I occasionally pick some inappropriate times for her, and call her then. Which is what I did earlier today. I set all the bowls on the stove and turned everything up to full heat then let it burn away while I called my parents.
Here's part of our conversation ...
Tim: So, anyway, Mum, can you send down two books for me?
Mum: Okay.
T: The Bible and the Q'uran.
M: What? What do you want those for?
T: Well, I'm going to convert, obviously, but I'm not sure which religion to pick yet. What do you think? Christian or Muslim?
M: ....
T: Can you mail them down?
M: Where are they?
T: In my old room, on the bookshelf behind the door.
M: Well ...
T: They're really easy to find. Go in there, and you'll find the books are listed in alphabetical order. The Bible and Q'uran are there under G.
M: G?
T: For 'God', obviously.
M: Oh! Are they really?
T: Didn't you know? I've shown you before. They're in the bit with all the novels and fictional works.
M: I don't know, Tim.
T: No, seriously. I'm going to convert, I really am. I guess I've got a couple of choices. Catholic or Protestant, Sunni or Shi'ite. What do you think? What sounds better?
M: Just go into a secondhand bookstore in Melbourne and buy a new copy ...
T: But why would I do that? I've got the books there. Besides, I'm not going to spend more money on the Q'uran when I've already bought it once.
M: It will cost too much to send them down. What do you want them for? Are you going to write something?
T: Mum! Those books are family heirlooms! It would be wrong to buy new ones!
M: ...
T: ...
M: So how's the weather down there?
T: Oh, fine, fine.
Parents are more fun than babies, they really are.
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10 comments:
Well, I suppose they are too ...
No, pants are not fun. Haven't you ever read the statistics on the number of emergency room admissions as a consequence of men putting their pants on? Especially in Britain?
(The British even managed to have lots of accidents with tea cossies each year. Yes, true.)
Tim - your Mum must be very proud.
I'm sure she is.
'Tea Cossies' sounds like a cross between a kitchen item and a swimming costume. I'd imagine it would be quite dangerous combining the two.
That's a good question: I'm only Sikh if I've been drinking too much; I usually have a Sunni disposition; but now and Zen, I turn to Buddhism.
You get to wear tablecloths.
First tea-cossies, and now people wearing tablecloths.
Maybe we should change our religion every day of the week, like our clothes. If we include the wishy-washy new age ones, there'd be plenty to choose from; and if we ran out, we could always make up a few more.
Poor old mum, the things she puts up with.
You are living in inner-city Melbourne, Tim. You have to convert to nothing.
I'm not sure about that, Major. These days I find that if I do not belong to the Holy Church of Greenism and fast on anti-GM biodegradable Tofu every Sabbath, I get looked at very strangely by my Brunswick neighbours.
hrmmm, i actually like my parents
but your exchange is funny
During the same phone call, Dad said to me, 'You'd make an excellent politician! You always find a way of avoiding the issue!'. And I actually had shown Mum my way of ordering the books as well. I was a little bit put out that she didn't remember it.
My mother is stridently anti-religious, which means that once every few months, I tell her I'm converting to some wild sect, just to keep her on her toes.
I'll bet the tablecloths are even more dangerous than the tea-cossies.
You are helping your mum prevent early onset of dementia; it's an act of love and kindness that you strive to keep her synapses firing, and her toes pointed.
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