To Be Continued

And so like a real live grown up myself, I call Charlotte.

Truth is, I am kind of a wreck. I barely listened to enough of the message to identify its purpose and my nerves were in shreds. God only knows what little grenades were left when she got all the pistons firing.

Charlotte can not believe I won't listen to the whole thing. Swears it would make great blog copy. Of course it would. Most lunatic rantings are hilarious with enough distance and time passed. However I do not have the benefit of either of those things. Only seconds have passed and I can't gain any distance from the situation. I am the situation. I may as well be trying to avoid my own skin.

But I promise Charlotte I will give it a try. Later, the benefit of a chardonnay under my belt, I log into my annoying phone system again and after listening to all the inane messages still waiting there, am afforded the opportunity to listen to messages I've saved, like Mom's. Saved for reasons that escape me even now.

The 3 or 4 other saved messages give me time to change my mind. But I don't. Or at least I don't at first. And then when I have listened to the one from the school regarding 6th graders wearing perfume, and the one from my state representative about the new recycling routine in the neighborhood, and the one from my daughter's friend that is too confusing to figure out on my own, I hear the familiar searing greeting.

I nod to myself through the Mad as Hell part and the It's All in Your Head part, and the next part where she says she is not manipulating anything. (I would venture to guess that most people who manipulate anything are not willing to admit that they have a dark, self-serving agenda. That would mean that they are wicked and, well, self-serving. Not a good color on most of us.)

She then begins an unbelievable (No really. Not believable.) soap opera quality, feigned crying jag that I can just tell is not accompanied by real tears. It is the fakey, shaky-voice, quivery lip, I'm-so-upset-I-can-barely-choke-out-more-than-one-syllable-at-a-time boo-hoo-for-me act I have come to recognize even as the words are spoken into her low-budget pre-paid no-frills cell phone outside in the wind.

"I stay with the Lushes....sniff sniff...because I don't want to be a burden to anyone!"

OH PUH-LEASE! Cry me a river, Estelle!

Mark your calendars, folks, today is the day I have finally heard IT ALL.

It is a well known and observable fact that Mother does not give so much as one good God damn about burdening anyone.

I have managed to get through about one sentence more on this read through than I did on the first attempt and have reached my threshold again.

I re-save the message for a braver, less hormonally unpredictable day, and call Charlotte back.

Mission aborted.