Please Leave a Message at the Sound of the Beep

Days go by.

No phone calls to me. No phone calls to Charlotte.

Clearly Mom has boarded the broom and is bombing her way North for the Final Conflict – Damien Thorn/Omen-style. I can almost hear the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

And then just when I am convinced that maybe I made my point, touched a nerve in a way that evoked reflection and some kind of Ebenezer Scrooge Ghost of Christmas Past kind of reversal I realize that there will be no such luck.

No.
Such.
Luck.

If it weren’t so bizarre, it might be funny. David Sedaris Holidays on Ice funny.

I check my messages one night – or rather – my record of missed calls – to see if they are all solicitation calls and the usual inane messages from my children’s fellow middle schoolers. More importantly to see if there is any compelling reason to actually log in and retrieve any messages from my uncommonly annoying voice mail system.

Oh there is.

I can see that there is a missed call from Mom’s cell.

Knowing Mom, she would have been concealing this particularly nasty little conflict from Bill. She probably had to step outside and light a cigarette and use her cell to be able to get her full on Beyotch mojo cooking.

The message began with:

“I am making this call when I know you are not there because I want to leave a message.”

Loosely translated: "I am calling when I know I can be guaranteed an opportunity to leave my totally rehearsed pissy little personal attack and will be able to get it all out with out being interrupted with some little pearl of superiority from you.”

Who does this?

She continues in a voice that could split an atom.

“I am mad as Hell at the things you said!”

Really? I would never have guessed from your demeanor, Mom.

“But this letter!” she continues. “Who sends a letter like this to someone?”

Well Mom, you do. Please recall the little letter bomb you enclosed in Bill’s daughter-in-law’s Easter card in the Spring.

And to launch into the rant proper, “First of all, it’s all in your head!"

And with that “there you go imagining things again” accusation that really should be reserved for use with 5 year olds, I click over to the next message and the sound of the beep.