This is, in part, a story I’ve heard retold so many times I’m having to go on memories of memories of a memory at this point. The other day, my mother just happened to tell the story again. Her version is different than my memory, but that’s what happens when lots of time passes. Either way, the essence of the story is the same in both of our recounting.
When I was young my parents had two telephones: one in their bedroom and one in the kitchen. This was back in a time when you always answered the phone when it rang. There were no telemarketers, automated appointment reminders and no voice mail. It even pre-dated the answering machine age, so when the phone rang, you jumped up to get the call, because it was someone you knew who wanted to talk to you.
I suppose there were a good bit of wrong numbers at that time too. The two phones my parents had were rotary dial. Dialing a phone number was prone to error because we had to actually remember phone numbers and do the whole dialing out every time. It was easy to get a digit wrong or mis-read what was written down on a piece of paper.
The phone in the kitchen had a very long cord on it. I remember once my mother was taking a call from Southern Bell about their service and happened to mention the long cord. The customer service representative on the other end said she didn’t have down that my parents had an extra long cord (the one from the phone to the receiver) and if we had one, we should be paying a monthly fee. My mother thought quickly and said that it probably wasn’t long, the coil was just very stretched out.
For this story though, we were all sitting at the dinner table. It was dark outside so it must have been winter with an earlier sunset time. The phone rang and I jumped up, eager to take the call and see who it was. The person on the other line was an adult male that I didn’t recognize. At that time I didn’t know to say, “may I ask who’s calling” so when he asked to speak to my mother I told him to hold on.
I walked over to the door, utilizing all of that long phone cord and told my mother the call was for her. My mother asked me, “who is it?” I replied, “It’s a man with a mustache.”
Both of my parents broke up laughing as my mother go up to take the call. I remember her laughing as she repeated what I’d said to the caller. I was a little bit embarrassed by the whole thing but when I realized they were laughing in a good-natured way, I felt clever, saying something unexpected. I don’t know what it was about the voice but it sounded like he had a mustache to me. The other day when mother was telling the story she said I had been right, the man did have a mustache. Of all the details I remember from that story, whether the man actually had a mustache or not, I don’t remember.
The Big Boy Update: We had Bring Your Parents to School day on Friday. He was showing us all the different things he’d been doing at school. We looked up and realized we only had ten more minutes before the morning’s visit was over. When we told him he said, “time flies when you’re learning.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: We went to an African American festival today with Mrs. Aagaard, my daughter’s retired braillest. She knows just what to do to introduce my daughter in a way to people that in no way says she’s blind, and yet conveys the message clearly. She asks if my daughter can touch things. People are very happy to help. Today my daughter touched a civil war uniform, felt what an officer’s hat was like from the time and got to see how long and heavy the guns were that the soldiers used. There was a lot for her to feel and experience. One booth was about a women’s boarding school (or perhaps “charm school” is more appropriate). She felt what a place setting was like for a formal meal, asking why there were three forks and three wine glasses. Then she had her hair put up in a traditional African head wrapping.
No comments:
Post a Comment