I've Lost My Funny Bone

I can usually find the humor in every situation, but today my funny bone seems to be misplaced.  Yesterday when I got online to check my bank balance, I discovered a charge that shouldn't be, I was frustrated, but thought it was fixable.  While on the phone with the bank, my cell phone died.  There was just enough life left in it to ring a couple of times and then it died.  I saw that it was Jacob calling me, so I asked Julie to call him back.  As I was saying this to Julie, her cell phone rang.  It was Jacob.  He needed to tell me that he had been in an accident.  Great!  Here I am with Sarah, Julie, two nurses aides, Uncle Huey, and the bed he is occupying.  We are all jammed into an elevator on the way to fourth floor, which will be Uncle Hueys abode for a couple of days.

I talk to Jacob, make sure he is okay, then decide to call Aunt Mary to see if she will go help Jacob.  I had to use Julie's cell phone, which is a Blackberry Bold.  Just saying that makes me think it ought to be an incredible phone, a phone with super powers even.  It might actually be that incredible of a phone, it might even have super powers, but I will never know.  I can't see the numbers or the letters on the keyboard, and it doesn't matter how many times Julie tells me that the keyboard on this incredible phone are just like the keyboard on my computer, I still want to throw the phone across the room.  The letters and numbers might be placed in the same order as my computer keyboard, but they are so tiny that one, I can't see them, and two, my fingers aren't that small.

It takes me ten minutes just to find the number side of the keyboard, and then I can't squint enough to see the numbers once I've located them. I also can't stretch my arm out far enough to bring the miniature keyboard into focus.  It's easier just to have Julie call Aunt Mary, and then she can just keep answering the phone for updates.  It's not that I wasn't heart sick about Jacob being in the wreck.  I was, and I wanted to just snap my fingers and my Nimbus 2000 broom and my invisibility cloak would appear, and I would be off to Edgewood in a flash.  Life, at least my life, doesn't happen that way.  I was at the hospital with Uncle Huey, and I had to be there for a while longer.  It's a good thing I am WOMAN.  I was able to listen to Julie's side of the conversation with Aunt Mary, while listening to the nurse brief me on Uncle Huey's condition.  I might not be able to physically  be in two places at once, I might not have a Nimbus 2000 broom to fly on, and I might not have an invisibility cloak, but when my hearing works, I can multi-listen.

I managed to comprehend all that the nurse had to say, made sure that my phone number and name were on record as the one to be called if Burl couldn't be reached, visit with Uncle Huey, make sure he was comfortable, and at the same time, I  knew what was happening at hwy 66 and Pony Express.  I was calm, cool and collected....on the outside.  Inside I was jumping up and down with frustration, worry, and the need to be two places at once.

This morning I checked my checking account, and wouldn't you know it....someone thought they could use Paul's hard earned money to purchase one hundred and sixty five dollars worth of flowers. Who needs that many flower?  They also thought they could use Paul's hard earned money to purchase something from gift gifting, whatever that might be.  Paul and I beg to differ.  I attempted to call the bank.  Now this is where my funny bone was no where to be found.  It's not funny when someone else is spending our money, and it's really not funny when Verizons cell phone service is spotty at best, and non-existent at worst.  I had already dealt with Verizon's poor service this morning while trying to get an update on Aunt Liz.  Dropped the call, call lost, no service, where should I stand in the house to get the phone to work?

I took my purse, my wallet, my checkbook, my phone and sat in the car, because that seemed to be the only place my phone would work.  I managed to get the process of fraud investigation under way with the bank, cancel my existing debit card, and then began an hour long process of working with Verizon about our phones.  You can't trouble shoot one phone while talking on said phone.  Into the house to get Julie and Jacob's phones.  The poor Verizon tech.  Not only am I technology challenged, I can't see the keyboard on either INCREDIBLE BLACKBERRY phone.  She is describing what the key should look like and on which side of the keyboard, and I'm squinting to see this.  I even put my glasses on, and still couldn't see. She asked if there happened to be the word SOS in red letters up in the top right hand corner of Jacob's phone.  Well, there is something red there, but it looks like 505, which is our area code.  She laughed, so I guess she found my funny bone.  I sure didn't have it with me.  In my defense, the SOS was very, very tiny.  It was a very tiny blur, and squinting at the tiny blur didn't make the SOS clear.  It was red, I could see that, but it was a blurry red.

My phone will now work all over the house, and so far this afternoon I haven't dropped, or lost one call.  Not even any static on the phone while I'm trying to hear what is being said.  Jacob's phone is beyond repair, and a new one is being shipped.  I can't help but wonder if I had been able to see the SOS sooner, if it would have made a difference for the life of the phone. :)

I hope the bank fraud department can find out who wants to use our money.  I also hope the bank is kind enough to let us have our money back, because there are so many others in line who want to use our money.  Like Verizon.  Even though our service is horrible at the best of times, they still want to be paid for all those dropped calls and no service times.  EMW Gas Co. thinks we should pay for the gas we have used.  Bank of America thinks we should make our house payment this month.  State Farm, who insures the van that is no longer drivable, thinks we should pay for the insurance they have provided all these years.  Crooks need to work for a living! That's what the rest of us do.  And I'm not laughing! Get your own money!

Cretia

What Did You Say?!!!!

I thought I heard you say something that I'm sure you didn't mean to say.  With my hearing loss becoming more and more noticeable, I've been thinking about days gone by when I could hear, and what I heard someone say that was just unbelievable.  Those someones were usually my children.  Sarah and Julie learned very quickly not to repeat the unbelievable when I asked them, "What did you just say?"  Jacob, not such a fast learner, but his sisters clued him in quickly.  I remember the day he referred to someone, using a not so nice name.  I said, "What did you just say?"  So he repeated it for me.  Sarah and Julie immediately jumped into the conversation with, "JACOB, when mom asks you that, NEVER repeat what you just said.  You are SO in trouble."  He didn't have a clue what the name meant, and when I told him, it was immediately funny to him.  It was funny, I admit that, but it wasn't nice.  Sometimes funny isn't nice, but it's still funny.  I admit that my kids could make me laugh, when I needed to be stern.

When the kids were little, we often called Sarah, "Bossy Boots".  Rightfully so, since she was the oldest, she knew more than her younger siblings, and she needed to boss them.  My mom was in the beginnings of her hearing loss time in life, so she often heard them say things that they really didn't say.  Jacob was about three years old at the time, and he was slightly irritated with Sarah.  In his state of irritation and frustration, he called her Bossy Boots.  Mom heard him call her Bossy Boobs.  When I got home from work to pick up the kids, she said that we needed to have a talk with Jacob about respecting his sisters.  It really isn't nice to call Sarah Bossy Boobs, and where in the world would he get that from anyway?  She was so upset. She was in such a snit over the whole thing.  It didn't help that I immediately started laughing.  Poor Mom, her lot in life to have me for a daughter has been such a trial.

What I heard and what you said are often not the same.  But you need to listen to the tone of my question when I ask what you said.  If I just ask, "What did you say?", it means I really didn't hear you.  If I say, "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?", it means you might want to rephrase your answer.

Cretia

Math: A Word Problem

I must say that Life is a Word Problem, and I was never good at Math or Word Problems, therefore I struggle with life, which is just one big Word Problem.  I quit school half way through my junior year.  I have lots of reasons for quitting school, one of those reasons being....WORD PROBLEMS that haunted me from day one, and the never ending class of General Math.

I hated school from the first day of first grade.  The only redeeming factor about first grade was my teachers last name.  Her name was Mrs. Nestle, which reminded me of chocolate, which I happen to love, even back then.  And like chocolate, she was very sweet.  I cried every day at school, and she was very sweet to me.  Mrs. Dennison, my second grade teacher was not sweet, she was even more bitter than bitter-sweet chocolate.  I didn't like her, and I cried every day in her class too.  Mrs. Ensminger was the sweetest of the sweet, and I cried every day in her class too.  Mrs. Murphy, she was just flat out mean, and I was too afraid to cry in her class, so I toughened up in fourth grade and didn't cry anymore.

Then along came high school.  The days that I showed up were just awful.  General Math awaited me.  Word problems were meant to torture those of us less fortunate than the brainiac kids. Coach Hewitt didn't like me when I first arrived in his class my freshman year, and he liked me even less when I appeared again my sophomore year, and he really didn't like me the first half of my junior year.  Not only was a math idiot, I was not of cheerleader quality. I was doomed, and I was taking him along with me into doomnation.

Some nightmares continue to show up in our lives, and math, accompanied by word problems are stuff that nightmares are made of. At least for me they are.  Just tell me the numbers involved in the equation and let me go from there.  I don't think the alphabet, or words should be involved in math equations.  I don't even care how fast the train was going, and I care even less what time it arrived at the station, at the speed it was going.  And PLEASE don't throw in useless information to confuse me more. It doesn't matter what color the train was. Just give me the schedule for the train, and I will be at the station to meet it.

Last night I was visiting with a friend, and she was telling me about a fund raiser that her daughter was having at school.  For some reason unknown to me, I decided to tell her what the profit would be for this fund raiser.  What in the world was wrong with me?  For me to do this, I had to create a word problem that involved numbers, and words, and useless facts, like that all the roses were red. I don't know what possessed me.  She didn't even ask me if I knew, or even if I cared what their profit would be.  BUT, I jumped on that train that was speeding to the station, at the speed of what, I did not know, and I will never know, because I don't care.  I created the following word problem all on my own, and still got the wrong answer.

 A group of students had a fund raising project.  They purchased a dozen roses, and paid fifteen dollars for the dozen.  They sold each red rose for two dollars a piece.  What was their profit?

My answer to that question, that was never asked, and I should never have offered an answer to, was that they made a profit of fifteen dollars.

You do not want to know how I arrived at that brilliant answer, and because you do not want to know, I am not going to tell you.  Create your own word problem, and figure it out for yourself.

Will You Marry Me?

Today I was remembering that in February of 1988, Paul asked me to marry him.  He wanted to get married in March, and I said March was too windy of a month to get married, how about April.  On April 8, 1988 we were married.  We had hurricane force winds that day.  Shows you what I know about the weather!

Today I was reading the Independent newspaper and they had some love poems to read.  I came across a poem that I had kept in my wallet for years.  Don't have a clue what happened to it, but I put it in my wallet soon after Paul asked me to marry him.  I loved it then, because it made me laugh, and I love it now, because it makes me laugh.  Love does funny things to a person.  Read on.......

"I climbed up the door and opened the stairs,
Said my pajamas and put on my prayers,
Then I turned off the bed and crawled into the light
All because you kissed me goodnight~!"

Author Unknown

Happy Valentine Day!