Text messages saved in my phone

This week at work while I was REALLY REALLY busy (have I mentioned that in a meeting yesterday we were handed out an article "how to get into trouble at work with the internet"? Not that we haven't been over and over this before. But apparently the boss man came across this (whilst surfing the internet at work?) and thought some of us could do with a reminder. Included were "don't have a blog" and "never post any photos of yourself anywhere", so I should totally be ok.) So as I was saying, I was working really hard, but I made time (probably during my lunch break) to go through my cell phone and delete some text messages, since it kept warning me that it was almost full. I'm not much of a texter, and neither are my friends (at least they don't text me much - so surely they don't text other people, right?) so these messages were pretty much as old as my phone. (Which is not as old as it should be! But I won't go off on another cell phone rant...) Anyway, I couldn't help but notice that my little stored messages were not nearly as interesting as these over here. This blog by Sarah Brown was one of the first I ever stumbled across, and dang, there is some interesting stuff going on back and forth on that phone of hers.

So, I am recognizing the fact that I am about to steal her practice of posting her text messages, but also noting the difference: mine do not make for such compelling reading material. So you can read mine below, or you can follow that link back and read something better. And if you are my friend, you can start sending me better messages. If you can't do witty, then maybe you could just do your deepest and darkest secrets. Don't worry, I won't tell! At least, I won't give your name out. Not on the internet - only by word of mouth will your name be given. You have my word.


We ate the rest of your cake.

In DC. Had smelly man next to me for 3 hours.

I'm tacky and playing beer pong.

trying to cactus cantina 4 (note: this is a place you go to for the margaritas.)

Your stalker is here.

Am nursing cramps and eating cheese dip.

Tell him to put me down for every night this week - I'm going to go tan myself orange now.

V is making friends with the guys next to us... then they asked if she was 21 and could buy them beer. Perfect.

Are they cute?

My tummy bout to explode.

That's hot.

Going for drink with the cop - don't let V steal him!

V just told host we could "squeeze"

I'm on my way - keep her away from him!

Am going out with 24 year olds - miss you.

In Paris... you? (note: this was in response to the question "Where are you?" on a New Year's Eve. My reply back to Paris was "Chattanooga.")

Am at party and (insert 3 boys' names here) are here with harems. I'm going in circles.

How is weekend??? Need info.

Get a pic of coffee guy - we can judge his homeliness next.

Guad?

Am hanging out with white black man.

Dale said last night that you have good legs. This confirms that he is in fact using me to get to you! I've known this for some time.

Tell Dale I'll be on the next plane to Arizona.

hmmm... don't be sad! I love you!

I'm 50, I read kids' books, and I'm rather bovine - who likes me now?

I know I have complained here before about the public, clangy scale at the doctor's office, but I have some updated venting to do.

I had a doctor's appointment recently, and I went through the usual weighing process, and was then seated in the examining room awaiting the doctor's entrance with my mind off of the scale because that was behind me now. Wasn't it?

The doctor came in and started flipping through my paperwork, and asking me the usual doctory questions. And then she made this statement: "You've gained some weight since you were here last." And then she just stared at me, waiting. I've never had a doctor bring up my weight before, and I didn't know how to respond. But it would seem from the extending silence that she was expecting something, so I came back with this: "Oh?"
"Yes", she said, "11 pounds."
"ah. really? hmm..."
And then she went back to staring at me. Was she waiting for some kind of excuse? Like, "Well, I like to eat." It seemed she had already deduced that. Or maybe, "I broke both my legs last year and was unable to run many miles every day like I wanted to, so I'm sure this will clear up soon!" Maybe that's what she was hoping for... broken bones. Or maybe she wanted me to thank her for bringing this to my attention and ask for her recommendation to the nearest fat camp? (Does anyone else remember getting weighed once a year in elementary school? The rumor was that if you weighed too much you would be sent away all summer to fat camp, where you would be forced to eat horrible things. And all the other kids would know and make fun of you and your life would be ruined. I wasn't overweight as a kid, but the weighing process still terrified me. Ok fine. I had a little chipmunk-cheeked phase, but I grew a lot right after that! I needed that fat for growth!!)
I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of pressuring me into a response - I preferred to just let the awkward silence grow. And just when I was about to break and mumble something like, "well... my clothes still fit..." She said, "Do you ever exercise at all?"
Boot camp! Is this what I am paying you for??! No, no it is not!
I told her that I had been forced to exercise every day for the past month and a half through boot camp, and I guess shortly after that she moved on. Not in a, "oh that's great! let's move on!" kind of way, more in a sceptical of the idea of me exercising kind of way, but I was ready to be done with that conversation. Has this ever happened to anyone else? And I am not talking to you pregnant people! I mean, I know it must be hard to see yourself expand like that, but still, somewhere, deep down, you have to realize that it is because you are carrying another HUMAN BEING around in your belly, and YES, that is a good excuse! And I know the doctor's sometimes comment on the weight you gain month to month... but for those of us who are most assuredly not pregnant? I mean, I don't think I look like someone whose heart must be on the verge of giving out, and I guess I thought doctor's were only slightly less polite about weight than the rest of the population. The rest of the population: not supposed to comment at all. Doctors: only when you are on the verge of dying from obesity. Apparently I was wrong. Either that or I am about to keel over from my own huge-ness. I don't know, she didn't tell me.

Some friends have suggested that I have gained 11 pounds of muscle from boot camp, but we all know that they have to lie to me because they are my friends. A few of them who've had babies have done the old, "oh, you can't weigh as much as I do! I still have all this baby weight! And with watching the little one, it's just so hard to find time to exercise! I don't even want to hear it, Jenn!" An old friend was visiting from out of town last week, and she was giving me this whole spiel, along with how much it changes your body, blah, blah, blah. And I'm not saying it doesn't, I'm just saying I don't want to hear about how you still weigh less than I do with all of your baby obstacles. So in this one case, I decided to prove my point by telling her how much I weigh, and let me tell you people, she laughed. And laughed and laughed. And when she was able to catch her breath, she said, "I'm sorry! I'm laughing because I didn't even think that was possible! I am flabbergasted! FLABBER. GASTED."
yeah, this may be a problem.

There was another element of humiliation to that doctor's visit, but I'm not going to get into it here. I will say though that it is really not fair (NOT FAIR!) that some of us have to be quizzed with really personal, invasive questions on a regular basis while others of us never do. And nurse with attitude? I could do without the indignation when I answer your questions - keep your look of shock to yourself, thank you very much.

hey, I'm 50, and I read like a 3rd grader

One of my former coworkers here called me last week. His daughter was accepted to my university, and he wanted to ask me some questions about it. The questions were primarily 1) how cold is it there, and 2) how close to the beach is it. She wasn't interested in visiting, she just wanted to know about the beach. But that is not why I am writing... At some point he asked me if many other people from around these parts attend this school - his daughter was the only one from her class who had even applied. In my response I included the fact that several students from my own class had gone there, although this was unusual, since with a class of 180, I had graduated from a much smaller high school than the one she attends. His response? "Oh, I think it much more harder now than in 1980."
1980? Oh, he thought I said 1980 instead of 180 people! ha ha! English is not his first language, this is an easy mistake to make!
"No, 10 of us went there out of one hundred and eighty students. In my class." There, that clarifies it.
"I know. But I think this University much more difficult to get into now then when you went there in 1980."

mmhmm. The man just added 18 years onto my life. This is not acceptable.
"1980?! Try 1998!!" (I may have kind of yelled.)
"Oh! 1998! Oh my goodness! You are not so old!" Then he laughed a lot.

It is impossible to tell what this laughter means, as he is a man who always laughed after everything he said. "Hi Jennifer, how was your weekend? ha ha ha ha!" or, "How come you come to work? Why you not let your daddy pay for you? ha ha ha ha ha!" Or, "You see on news all those school children got shot? ha ha ha ha!" very strange. But strangeness is no excuse for calling me 50 well before my time.

On another note from last week, here is a little conundrum I faced:
The scene: I am playing team trivia with a new acquaintance (or really a very old acquaintance, but that is another story that involves some stalking, so I'm sure you don't want to hear it) and several of his friends. This question is announced over the speakers: "The brightest star in our night's sky, Sirius, is also known as the ____ star. Fill in the blank with the appropriate animal."
No one at our table knew the answer, or had any basis on which to formulate a guess. Now here is my question: Do I, a) shrug my shoulders and say I don't know either (which is true) and let our team miss this point without even taking a shot at it? Or do I b) let the following words tumble out of my mouth: "I say Dog. The Dog Star. No, it doesn't sound familiar... no, I've never heard of it before... well, see... (looking around at table full of faces staring at me)... in Harry Potter, there's this guy Sirius, and he's an animagus, and his animal he can turn into is a dog. And J.K. Rowling likes her names to have significance. Take Remus Lupin for example, when he was a kid he was bitten by a werewolf, so if he doesn't take his medicine, he turns into a wolf during full moons. His name comes from the myth about Remus and Romulus, twins who were raised by a wolf. And his last name, "Lupin" comes from the Latin "lupine", meaning "wolf." Although it always reminds me of the word "lunar" and therefore the full moon. So... yeah... Sirius turns into a dog..."

and... end of mouth diarrhea.

I won't tell you which route I actually took, but I'm sure that if it were the latter, the one point we gained from answering that question was what they'd remember about that night, and not my scary knowledge of all things Harry Potter.

how my mother tried to get arrested

Hello there, interweb. It’s been a little while. For the past couple of weeks my time and my mind have been overloaded with various matters, and some things did come up that I meant to write down here, but I couldn’t get to it and now it’s all pretty much forgotten. So how about instead I share a recent family anecdote? The best part is my sister has already written it down for me.

Here’s the applicable background: I have a mother. She is a nice southern lady, who enjoys chatting to both friends and strangers alike. I’ve known her all my life and it’s extremely rare for her to raise her voice.
My family shares a cell phone plan with a certain company that perhaps I should not name here… we will call them Phone Company, because it’s morning and I’m not feeling very creative. They are maybe not the most highly recommended provider of phone service out there, which is why we’ve all been forbidden by my father from ever buying another phone for a reduced price in exchange for extending our contract. Which is why I keep paying way too much when my phones break down (which happens a little too often, people! I know you could make these things to last longer if you wanted to!!), and yet we never move on.

A week or so ago my mom was telling me what a delightful experience she had had at the Phone Company store when she went to replace her phone, which, shockingly, had completely fallen apart into more than one piece. It turns out, she COULD get a new phone at a low price and she didn’t have to sign any contract! And what’s more, someone in our family could get a cheap new upgraded phone, too! No, she didn’t know how to work her new phone, but she was sure it was a good deal.

And so, two days ago, she took my sister and my young niece back to the store with her to get her 2nd phone, and the following is what transpired:

Well it was a shocking experience. I have never seen mom get so angry and yell out as she did. She probably yelled louder than she would when cheering one of us on at a soccer game. But to mom's credit I would have been just as mad. So here is what happened: I was talking to a saleslady about getting a new phone, and she said that I would have to sign up for a 2 year contract. Mom overheard this and told the woman that she had just gotten a new phone the week before and was told she did not have to sign up for another 2 year contract. The woman then looked up mom's account and said she did sign up for a new contract. At that point I knew it was starting to get a little ugly so (young child) and I walked around the store looking at phones. The sales woman then went and got the man who sold mom her phone. Mom told the man that he had told her that she could get a new phone reduced price with the say plan and that he did not mention anything about a new contract. The man told mom that he had explained to her several times that she would have to sign up for a new contract (which is a big fat lie). After talking and arguing with the man for a few minutes mom all of the sudden screams out OHHHHHHHH I AM SO ANGRY and slams her fist down on the counter. (When I first heard the outburst I thought it was someone towards the back of the store yelling or someone had been hurt, but I quickly saw it was mom.) Then she yelled out to everyone in the store something like: “DON’T ANY OF YOU BELIEVE ANYTHING THAT THESE PEOPLE TELL YOU, THEY LIE!” Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at mom, and even (poor young granddaughter) stared for a minute. That's when the man threatened to call security and mom said, "Good, call security." The man then went to the back of the store. Mom went back there to ask him another question and a woman came out and told mom that she would have to wait for him at the counter. They argued a little more and the man said, "I don't appreciate being called a liar" and mom said "And I don't appreciate being lied to." So the man said she could return the phone and pay full price for it to get out of the contract if she brought all the packaging back. As we were walking out mom continued to say that she did not sign for a new contract and the man said that he could bring out the contract where she had signed and show it to us.
We left, but she went back later to return her phone and brought all the paperwork with her. She pulled some of it out of her bag and said to the man "Is this the contract you are talking about?" He said "yes" and mom pointed out to me him that she had not signed it - the line that said costumer signature was blank. He said, "Well you initialed another paper." He got it out and someone had written in block letters FR. (These are my dad’s initials, not my mom’s.) Mom said, "Those are not my initials and that is not my handwriting."

And that’s where my sister’s story ends, but I believe his reply was something like, “Well I don’t know how that happened.” mmhmm.
My mom did credit the other two people there who helped her with being very nice - the one that talked to my sister, and another one that eventually helped her give back her phone. And when she told her least favorite salesman "very nicely" (have I mentioned that she tends to exaggerate?) that the woman talking to my sister had told her upfront about the contract, and that's what he should be doing, too, he said, "Mam, I don't need you to tell me how to do my job" and she responded with, "Apparently you do."

Needless to say, I am SO thankful that I didn’t take my mom up on her offer to take me phone shopping a week earlier. Seeing my mom proclaim to a store of customers that they are all being lied to, storming behind a counter, and then wondering if security is coming to take us away are all experiences I don't need to have. And maybe you have to know my mom to appreciate this, but it is something I enjoy envisioning from afar. This is not a scene that the mom of my youth ever would have found herself in… I have to wonder if time wears us all down so, enough salespeople trying to mislead us, and pretty soon the gentlest of us is ready to have a public meltdown. Any future children I could but probably won’t anyway have, I apologize in advance.