don't call us, we'll call you
So we're on the downward spiral of summer vacation around here. In just over a week, my boys will scurry off to their respective schools, and embark upon new learning adventures, some of which will no doubt mean I'll be trying to figure out harder and more frustrating math.
I'm going to buck tradition and say I'm not actually looking forward to my children returning to school. We've had a pretty perfect summer. Minimal yelling. Very little crying. Both on my part, mind you.
I am, however, looking forward to all the neighborhood kids who've spent this summer laying about my place like I was the lone youth hostel with beds available on their backpacking adventures around the suburbs. From the moment the sun burst over the horizon on the first day of summer vacation, I've had a steady stream of loaner kids banging on doors, tapping on windows, phoning to do nothing more than breath into the receiver and ask, "What are you doing....what are you doing now....what about now?"
I've fed kids I've never seen before, housed the temporarily homeless, and taxied the unmovable. I've also given my son's brother from another mother another nudie show.
Again!
Twice!
Seriously!
The kid's seen my naked more this summer than my Tool Man.
Seriously!
No, it's not like I'm trying for that!
Yes, I'm tired of it, too!
Then there's the nonstop telephone calls to my house. Somewhere in his grave, Alexander Graham Bell is rolling around in glee that the world is filled with lazy boys and girls who can't just walk two doors down to visit with their friends. Me? Not so much. Here's a little tidbit about me that you may not realize - I'm not a morning person. Were it not for the pesky bit about having to suck the blood of an unsuspecting ne'er do well to sustain my immortality, I'd willingly consider that whole vampire gig. Also, I can carry off all black pretty well. It's the pale skin. It just works.
So anyway, I'm not a morning person. If you call my house before 7 a.m., it better be because you want to tell me I just won the lottery or something tragic has befallen my family. I need the money, so I'm hoping more for the former. If you can't shower me with balloons and gigantic checks, please do not call me to say good morning when I've only just recently said good night.
This, however, is a lesson my oldest son's friends have failed to learn all summer, and I swear to heaven, today I nearly threw on my slippers and trotted up the street to her house to flow chart it out for her. Here's how today's phone call played out:
- Scene - 6:45 a.m. (A - freakin' - M!) on a Monday (Mon - freakin' - day!) morning.
- Me - Asleep. Dreaming of some women bitching to me about how the books at the bookstore aren't alphabetized properly (seriously - yep, I do need to get out more)
- Phone - ringing! ringing! ringing!
- Me - WTF?
When I answer, the little girl who lives down the lane is all, "Can I talk to..." and before she could finish her query, I've morphed into my mother. "Do you have any idea what time it is, young lady?! It is 6:45 in the freakin' morning! Nobody needs to talk to anybody that early! Does your mother know you're on the phone?! Get offa my lawn! Fetch me my slippers! Why, kids today, I tell ya..."
My ranting, of course, was met with the silence I've learned over the course of the summer comes standard with this year's model of the 10 year old child. Then, fearing my wrath, her little voice quacked as she asked if I could take a message.
"I'm not typically equipped with pen and paper whilst sleeping..." I muttered, thinking how adorable it is that I like to talk all fancy on five hours sleep.
"Please tell him that he shouldn't call my house or come down to see me after 8:30 at night, because that's when I'm going to bed now," she continued.
Then it was my turn to be silent. "Hello? Did you hear me?" she asked. I heard her even though by then I'd pulled the phone away from my ear and was giving it a quizzical look, all "Are you serious with this?"
"Let me see if I got the message right," I finally responded. "You called here before 7 a.m., to say my kid can't call you after 8:30 p.m.? Honey, I hope you sleep well tonight..."
I think she was saying thank you as I was hanging up the phone. Me? I was up for the day. I got her number, by the way. I'm going to call her tonight around 9 p.m., maybe wish her a few sweet dreams (something better than Bitter Bookstore Lady, Crypt-keeper of the Alphabet), sing a couple lullabies. Good times.
And good night.
Labels: this craptastic post brought to you by five hours sleep
posted by for a different kind of girl @ 11:50 AM
44 Comments:
Then call her at 9:30 tonight and ask her if she can hear the voices in her closet inviting her to the Shadow Land.
heh, the neighborhood kids always know the "cool" mom where they can hang their hats. :-)
That is freakin' hilarious, my dear!
Or, call her mom about 11:30 tonight and leave a message that she shouldn't call your house before 9AM. . .
And football practice starts today, which means that we'll soon have the Random-Teammate Flop-House (minimum occupancy - five) wanting Molly to make pancakes on Saturday mornings (mercifully, they aren't usually awake before 10AM or so. . .)
And hey, next time you're planning one of your Nudie Shows, gimme a call, wouldja? ;)
And here, I thought you were going to feel guilty that your kid was calling her after her bedtime. But of course, it's summer, so this is probably the get-back-into-the-school-routine NEW bedtime. And Backpacking Dad? you made me spit out my juice. Wipe, wipe, wipe.
I remember when I use to deliver pizzas and someone used there cellphone to call the second floor to tell her son his pizza was there.
Payback's a bitch!!
Love it!!
Hallie :)
You do know that you could:
A) turn off the ringer, or
B) just not answer the phone.
I've been known to sleep through ringing phones, alarm clocks, doorbells, and fire alarms. With the right amount of tired-ness, you can really get used to any of those sounds.
BTW, why are you always walking around naked in front of young children? Someone should call child protective services. If I did that, I'd probably be in jail. You do it, and you're just the "cool hot naked mom."
I'd be inclined to disconnect the phone before I went to bed - if there's an emergency, whoever it is can call you on your cell.
I wonder if you can get timers that will disconnect the phone for you between certain hours? I've pretty much stopped answering mine between 6 and 7pm, when I'm watching the news. It's usually evil telesales people anyway...
My daughter has JUST started to get phones from her best friend. And it is apparently quite the novelty for this girl, because she called 7 TIMES on Friday. I stopped answering the phone, and had to listen to 4 voicemails consisting of her heavy sighs.
Kids these days....
I'm somewhat of a morning person and even I don't wake up that flippin' early and call people. I do vacuum and sing showtunes before 9am, though. My neighbors LOVE ME!
little whippersnappers!
You people still have phones in your houses? How quaint... ;-)
My kids don't talk to their friends, they're either texting them via cell phone or IMing them on the computer.
oh so much to look forward to with my little Joe in the future! :)
Hope you had a great day, my dear! :)
She totally deserves a call tonight - unfortunately, sarcasm is wasted on the young, so it won't do any good.
I just realized that we don't have girls calling our house all the time. With a 14yo boy, what's up with that??
I'm sure he's just convinced that Budman and I would embarrass the ever living daylights out of him when his girlies called.
He is SO right.
i love how boys today are boys.
but i'm not at all diggin' little girls with their flippant attitude and the it's all about me mentality. get a freakin grip little girl.
oh if it were me, you can bet your ass i'd have the little mister callin' her at 8:35pm percisely and telling her...i sleep til 10am. don't call me before that.
you know what i mean?
shes gonna be one of 'those' girls when she gets bigger.
I lust you muchly.
Kids today are such children.... I swear....
When I was a kid it was an unwritten rule that there would be no calling of friends at evening meal times, after 7 pm or before 9 am. Any such rule breaking resulted in the loss of phone privileges (the most mild form of grounding in our house). It didn't matter if they called us or we called them....
Good times....
That sounds like quite the saucy little tart you have for a neighbor! I agree with Desmond, call over there at 11:30 pm.
I too HATE early morning phone calls. Occasionally, we'll get a sales call (and YES, I'm on the DO NOT CALL REGISTRY) at 8:30 a.m. and I will interupt them with, "Do you have any idea what time it is?"
I'd have responded much the same way if I were called at 6:45am. That is just wrong on every level. I'm not a morning person either. And lately, not even coffee is helping to ease the pain of my early risin' rugrats.
I used to call my neighbor as a kid and when her dad would ask who it was say "Guess!"
Her dad would get so furious and both she and my mom had to explain to me how rude that was, but that just made me want to do it more, because I couldn't believe that after a while he wouldn't just know it was me!
That's the humor of a year old. I'm sure it'll come back to haunt me.
What kind of girl is this that he's hanging out with?
I can only guess that the 8:30 bedtime is beyond her control.
I'm not looking forward to phones entering the equation at our house.
I find speaking gibberish in a Japanese accent gets whomever it is off the line quickly.
But you can find solace in the fact your kid isn't hanging out with any "loose" little girls.
How come there were no moms like you when I was growing up? None of them ever flashed me.
Yeah. I'm not a morning person either. I have to wake up onmy own have my coffee sulk because I'm awake and then I get irritated.
When hubs and I were dating, I could not call his house after 9:00pm. or during dinner time.
Half the time his grandma answered and she would screech.
"WHAT?? WHO ARE YOU?? WHY ARE YOU CALLING HERE??"
You are KIDDING me! 6:45 a.m. is way too early to be dialing a phone, much less answering one and taking down a coherent message.
I'm not sure which is worse, the fact that there's anyone out there that calls at 6:45am or that you took a message at 6:45am?!
Calls at 6:45 in the morning can only mean bad things. Hag.
Giving birth has morphed me from the glorious, annoying morning person I once was. Now the bed just feels WAY too good.
Time to ditch the landline! Oh that would be a dream of mine, don't mind me and my crazy tired babbling--after seeing Wall-e, and seeing the future world (fat people rolling around in pods connected to computers and cellphones, ignoring the world around them) I'm really starting to wish I'd lived back during the Stone Age! ;)
Thing 1 is already bugging me for a cell phone. She's 8. She can barely remember our home phone number. She's going to be locked in a closet once pubety hits.
I have people from church, who you think would know better, that call at 10:00 at night - knowing full well I have two small children! Doh! If the phone rings before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., someone better be dead, dying, or just born. Otherwise, I'm going to be pissed.
That's why we don't have a phone in our bedroom. Heaven help the person who woke me up that early. And I agree with always home the more I hear about the pre-teen and teenage years the more locking the little one away seems oh-so appealing.
I third the 11:30pm call. Pissing off the girl in question offers only short-term results. Pissing off her parents -- and making it clear that it's a result of their daughter's actions -- is vengeance.
People frequently call me before 8 am on the weekends. They all know i have to get up at 5 during the week so I'm good for a call anytime after I use the bathroom, but they always forget that I do NOT get up that early on the weekends. And this isn't a new occurence.
My daughters friends don't even have our home phone number. They have her cell phone number, thank goodness.
Even after multiple times of telling my mom (who lives on the East Coast, but still assumes we all live in the same time zones) to quit calling me at 6 in the morning, she hasn't taken a hint. Now I have succumbed to turning off my phone at night, which now makes me forget to turn it back on in the morning, which then turns into Hubs having a cornerary because he can't reach me. Shit, I would almost rather listen to my mom at 6 am then Hubs ranting "where the hell have you been" and "why haven't you returned my calls?" lol
When I was little, we weren't allowed to phone our friends before 10am or after 5pm. The neighbourhood moms must've had some sort of unspoken rule.
But the funny thing... I can still remember everyone's phone number from those days.
Why is your boy hooking up with girls in the middle of the night?
Middle of the night being between 8pm and 830...
And if I am getting flashed, I think I am swinging by your house on a regular basis.
If this is what I have to look forward to in a few years with my three boys, then I want a refund. I didn't sign up for this.
No way....flashed him twice. Girl....you gotta watch that or those boys won't ever leave. ;-)
I'm with you though on the early phone calls. Grrr...
So what are you tryin to say? You DONT want phone calls before 7?
I too would wait until at least 9:45 to call her - and I would add to the closet dwellers, those little voices under her bed. Just for kicks ya know!
And the vampire thing, yeah, I am right there with you. Dont like the sight of blood, so cant do it either.
I cannot wait for school to start... only because that means on Fridays I am alone for the day - all day... But I am sad my baby is starting Kindergarten this year... :(
can you believe my stepson has already started school! what?!!! back to the grind. and just so you know, i'm totally going to start referring to him as "my son's brother from another mother." that's freaking awesome.
I am at work by 8:10AM, if someone called my house at 6:45AM, when I am STILL SLEEPING, they would meet all kinds of pain...of the aural kind... from me....
P.S. I'm thinking of breaking up with Grey's, not Heroes, I'll be sure to keep you abreast of that decision come October after the FALL TV premieres...
What kind of child out of diapers wakes up at 6:45 AM? There is something not right with that girl, something not right at all. Get revenge FADKOG, get revenge ya hear?
BP Dad - Or do I call you 'Baby' or 'Honey' now? Your suggestion? Pristine. Perfect. Thanks - for it (and for being you), Sugar Bear! Heh.
Yatpundit - I'm sure my mistake is always having healthy snacks available for them, don't you think? Thanks for visiting!
Des - Your suggestion definitely crossed my mind! I suppose the idea of curbing the absolutely accidental nudie shows should cross my mind more ofte, too!
MAM - One of the things that further annoys me about that phone call is the fact that my kid has never called her or gone down there (at least without her direct invitation) at any point in an evening. She's a piece of work!
Mike - That will be every kid on my street who walks around with their own cell phone!
WWoW - I could probably be extremely vengeful if pushed! I'm even a little grumpy if the phone rings at 7:30 a.m.!
ftn - Turn off the phone?! And potentially miss out on the possibility that you will call me one morning?! Are you INSANE?!
Brian - I so rarely hear my cell phone. About the only time someone calls me on it, I'm driving and the music is rather loud, and then there's that whole idea that I probably shouldn't be sleeping and driving!
Biscuit - OMG, the constant calls from one kid! As soon as the phone rings, I'm all, "Freakin' Ryan..." If he's told my kid can't/doesn't want to/whatever play/talk/whater "right now," he'll call every 15 minutes to ask "Now?" This has gone on since the first day of vacation. Except for when he comes and knocks on the door at 8 a.m. Yeah. Even better.
Meg - I could literally vacuum and sing show tunes at any hour of the day! Even when I'm trying to sleep!
bekah - Word!
Michael - We also hunt for our food, and we only make once-a-month trips to town, because it involves hitching the horses to the wagon, and dodging wild animals or rogue criminals. ;)
katie - Ha! That little Joe is gonna grow up to be a little stud. I suggest losing the phone and de-program him on those 'teaching him his phone number' lessons!
Sunshine - Well-placed sarcasm is totally wasted on the young. All I get when I try it is a "What? Did you say something?" If you have to repeat it, it's no good!
kimmy - She is so already 'that' girl. Except she's pretty boyish, if you know what I mean. I think the reason she only hangs out with boys is because she pretty much thinks of herself as one.
Savage - When I was a kid, we pretty much had to beg for anything we wanted, and that included using the telephone, so there's no way I was calling anyone too early or too late. Kids today are sassy!
Cocotte - Oh, the number of calls that come through even on that Do Not Call registery! Gah! Some days, all I do is dodge them!
Merecat - My son plans to walk to school with this girl, so I anticipate a long year of these types of phone calls, which already gives me a headache!
Zip - I thought I was curbing these types of calls by nipping my son's desire for a cell phone in the bud, but now I wonder if I was too hasty in saying no to that!
Meg - I've seen the little girls who swarm around my kid when we go swimming at the YMCA. I dread the day they start calling!
Chag - If they were like the moms on my street when I was growing up, they were locking their kids out of the house every morning, going to work, and then letting them back in when they got home. Maybe. Only if they were good.
Bee - Ha! Um, when I was dating Tool Man, it was the same way. I was all bold and living alone in the mythical BIG CITY, and he lived with his parents, and didn't have his own phone. Yeah. I so wanted to marry him!
Melissa - No kidding! Hell, I don't even make my own phone calls to people until around 1 p.m.!
Mandy lou - Ha! Suffice to say, I took the message with a wee bit of polite hostility!
Alice - Amen on the morphing after having kids. Except, before kids, most of my mornings never started before 10 a.m., and even then, I needed about an hour to become civil!
Nan - I'd have ditched the landline years ago were Tool Man not so paranoid about the authorities finding us should we need to call 911. I tell him that any intruder worth their salt would have cut the phone lines before we could call anyway!
Always Home - Oh, I am exhausted from the cell phone debate. So exhausted that it would be nice to sleep. Clearly, though, with the landline and girls with questionable morals and/or sense, calling, that exhaustion will only continue! I still say no to a cell phone, though. Because I'm cheap!
Bunny - The good thing about the people who go to my church is they're always late, so I know if they say they'll call at 9 a.m., it'll be more like 10:30!
Frances - About the only reason I keep the phone in the bedroom is to grab it should it ring before it wakes the boys, who are usually up already, which irritates me and is about the only reason I wish they'd morph into teens so they'd sleep half the morning away!
Twobusy - Based on some of the dealings I've had with this girl's father, nothing would make me happier than irritating him. My luck, however, means my kid and his girl will end up married one day, and I'm going to have to deal with the dad the rest of my life. So, I'm weighing the pros and cons there!
Heather - If my son had a cell phone, he'd be on it constantly, and the bad part is, he just thinks it's a phone, that it doesn't cost anything to have it. When I tell him to get a job (which he can't), he changes his tune, but only for a bit!
Choppzs - Cripes, that is my mom, too, and we live in the same time zone! Hell, she lives 2 minutes away from me! She'll call and be all, "Oh. Did I wake you?!" then proceed to be gripy about how I was still sleeping when she has been up since 4:30 a.m., worked out, did 82 loads of laundry, volunteered for the homeless, scrubbed all her floors, etc., etc. How I relish every call!
Mandy - When I was growing up, most of my friends lived next door or around the block, so if I even dreamed of asking my mom if I could call them, she'd push me out the door to walk there and knock on their door! Today, my son's friends have stood at our door, knocking AND calling!
Bogart - Swing by anytime. There's no set time for the flashing, but on the days I have to work, there's the chance for twice-daily shows.
Undomestic Diva - I think it's going to get worse! The only cute thing is how my oldest still thinks girls are just 'eh,' but the girls are starting to totally dig him.
Laura - Ha! Sometimes it seems like I have three or four sons now rather than the two I went to all the joy of having!
Lori - Oh, honey, there is nothing, and I mean nothing, as glorious as that first day when you get to spend up to 8 glorious hours alone when the kids are in school! I lose an hour this year because of middle school and the different start/dismissal times. I'm mourning that hour. I am not kidding!
you da mom! - Heh! Get tshirts printed with that on there for him! (glad to see you here again, btw!)
loudange - I've thought of breaking up with Grey's, but it has something on me, and I fear if I break up with it, it will use that against me, so I stay. Plus? Patrick Demspey! Mmmmm...
motherbumper - Trust me, a reign of terror will fall from the heavens and smite that child and any future children she has if she deigns to call my house before 7 a.m. again!
hey for a different kind fo girl,
another nudie story?
i think this blog demands pictures.
rock on,
aitch
Harris - No clothes mean no pockets to tuck the camera. The blessing and the curse of my existence! Thanks for coming around and commenting!
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