kidattypewriter

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Parents Are More Fun Than Babies!

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.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

At first it looked like it said "Pants Are More Fun Than Babies" and I thought "No way!"

TimT said...

Well, I suppose they are too ...

Caz said...

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.

TimT said...

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.

TimT said...

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.

TimT said...

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.

Anonymous said...

Poor old mum, the things she puts up with.

You are living in inner-city Melbourne, Tim. You have to convert to nothing.

TimT said...

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.

Anonymous said...

hrmmm, i actually like my parents

but your exchange is funny

TimT said...

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.

Caz said...

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.

Email: timhtrain - at - yahoo.com.au

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