Sir Rantsalot

I refrain from calling Charlotte until I have had a chance to return to my office and shut my door. If there is going to be audible wailing and gnashing of teeth and expletives flying hither and yon, I owe the people around me at least that much decency.

I sit at my desk. I take out a pen and pad so I can take notes to follow along competently when we inevitably rehash finer details, and I dial Charlotte.

"Oh sweet bearded Jesus. Our mother is crazy!" is exactly the greeting I get from Charlotte.

I find the levity at this point to actually giggle and say, "What did our dangerously unbalanced mother do now?"

Charlotte, ever dutiful had called her. She hadn't called in a while (clearly we don't have the same sense of guilt) and she felt badly that she could not recall when Mom's cataract surgery was supposed to be (if not cancelled altogether once she showed up with trauma to the face and eye sockets...) and so she picked up the phone while doing something mindless like laundry.

And within minutes she was off to the races. Rehashing the Open Door/XBox/Cat Poop Debacle in Hi-Def detail within a matter of minutes.  Criticized Charlotte for how she and Jack handled Joe's idiotic behavior and flagrant violation of their privacy and their home without so much as an acknowledgement from him that it was wrong.

And then it became obvious that Joe had shared the sordid details of the texting war we'd all had a few weeks back.  Mom was how-dare-you-girls-ing and all that and segued right into her recollection (however flawed) of the cleaning out of Dad's house again.  (Mom never paid this much attention to Dad's house when she lived in it. The sudden preoccupation decades later baffles me.) 

And then while she was berating Charlotte for blocking Joe's texts forever on her cell, (When we all know if he weren't such a full on idiot, he could figure out a way around that. But there is that little matter of him being an actually super-sized moron with no ability to do anything not specifically instructed to do by our mother or his shrew wife) she went on to take offense to some benign comment Charlotte had made when Mom seemed to think she had to pilfer a bottled water from the graduation ceremony a few weeks back. I couldn't even recall the exchange it was such a non-event, but Mom has had  a few weeks to let it marinate in her cauldron of swill and has turned it in to something she can take offense over, natch. (And if she didn't come up with being offended all on her own, I am sure Bill helped her get to the boiling point, divisive little snake that he is.)

"Oh my God!  You are too kind to stay on the phone for even two bites of that crap sandwich, Char, " I manage to say when she puts a period at the end of the long rambling sentence.

"Oh it doesn't end there. She has more to say about you."

And suddenly I am not smiling. Not taking notes. No longer amused. Here is where the meanness takes flight.