When I got home from class on Tuesday, Dave told me that my mom had called, but he hadn’t answered because she calls just about every night, and she definitely calls every Tuesday night, and they have the same conversation every Tuesday night, with her forgetting I have class and then trying to make small talk with my husband. He didn’t pick up, but that’s why we have Caller ID. By the time I got home, though, I was ravenously hungry, and didn’t return her call because I was going to blow a gasket if we didn’t figure out a food plan, and soon. Once we’d ordered a pizza, the phone rang, and it was my mother, again, so I answered.

“Where have you been? Did you get my message? I’ve been hanging around Bangor waiting for you to return my call, because I wanted to stay at your house tonight.”

My folks are in Austria now, but mom came down early to drop off her car, the Outback, because “I figured for those ten days we’re gone, you’d like to have a seatbelt and heat.” I felt awful, the ONE TIME we don’t answer her call, she’s forced to eat alone at Ruby Tuesday’s, waiting for me to call her back and tell her to come on over. And the whole trip is because she was doing something really NICE for me! Gah.

Then, last night, Dave asked if I’d heard from my mom.

“No, they’re off to Austria, why?” “Well, I got to work yesterday, and my message light was blinking, but I decided to get my coffee and stuff before checking my voicemail.
But then I got paged, and it was your mom, who was freaking out.
‘DAVE! Oh, no, oh no, I JUST put a piece of toast in the toaster, and I hit the button, and ALL of the power went out! Where do I go to reset it? Oh, I feel just awful. SHIT!’ But, when I went to work, I noticed that the light at Hammond was out, so, basically, the power went out in the whole neighborhood JUST as your mom decided to make toast.”

My poor mom; she must have been freaking out. And wondering just what the hell was wrong with our wiring that you couldn’t even make TOAST safely.