Phone call

I asked mom whether she'd sent the complaint letter. Instead of answering, she starting going on about how she's been working with Irina, how wonderful Irina has been throughout this whole ordeal, how she's a perfectionist and besides, has taken up the cause as if it was her own, and so on. She didn't say "unlike some people," but it was clearly implied. After she was done, she talked about something else, and then came back to how wonderful Irina has been in helping her craft her complaint letters.

Later, she called me back and asked what to put in the subject line of an e-mail she was sending, the body of which would be the text of the letter, to a newspaper or online forum or something designed to help people in these situations.

A.: How about, "stuck in gym membership..."
Mom: No! The issue now is ABC Financial. That should be in the subject line.
A.: That's all well and good, but the root of the issue is the gym membership that they won't let you drop. That's why they've sent the financial people after you. You can write both...
Mom: No!
A.: Well, I don't know, then.


And then mom wonders why I don't meet her expectations for complaint letter help. First of all, did she ever thank me for editing the letter she sent me on Monday? Then, when I do help her, she doesn't take my advice. And you'd think I never offered or agreed to help her, such that she turned to Irina. All I did was ask her to send me the specifics of the situation. Is that too much to ask?

Knowing my mother, I decided against point out any of this. I just let her rant.

***
Mom: Where's the cat?
A.: She's right here. She's crawled under the tarp, actually. [Note: it's scary that I almost, intuitively, typed "TARP;" "tarp" looks wrong.] It's quite cute.
Mom: What tarp?
A.: You know that green thing I use to cover the futon in the yard, when it rains?
Mom: Is it raining?
A.: No.
Mom: But the cat's under the tarp?
A.: Yes.

Thankfully, one of us changed the topic.

This reminded me of an earlier conversation with mom, that for some reason I didn't blog at the time:

Dad: What are you reading these days?
A.: Mostly magazines, actually, but I'm also still slogging through "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius." It's good... but I can only take it in small doses.
Mom: What?
A.: A-Heart-breaking-Work-of-Staggering-Genius.
Mom: Who wrote it?
A.: David Eggars.
Mom: Who's he?
A.: A writer.
Mom: Whose genius?
A.: His own. It's quasi-facetious/ironic.
Mom: I don't get it.
A.: You kind of have to read the book.
Mom: I've never heard of it.
A.: [Shrug]

I get annoyed whenever my parents ask me to repeat a book or film title, because usually no amount of repetition is enough. This is nobody's fault; my parents are not native English speakers. What I don't understand is why we have to keep playing the repeat-the-long-title game.

***
Mom: Do you have plans for the weekend?
A.: Mercifully, no.
Mom: So you're just going to stay home all weekend??
A.: Um, no. I just said I didn't have plans.
Mom: So what are you going to do?
A.: I don't know. I'll go on a bike ride, maybe call around and see who's in town. I will veg and read some, though. What are your plans?
Mom: We'll probably go out to the lake.

To her credit, she didn't go on about how she has lakes to go to and I don't.