Nov 25 2007
Meanwhile…Back In the Phone Booth
I don’t live over the hill and through the woods.
My guests did not have to answer The Riddle Of the Mountain Troll.
Yet somehow…they all got lost on the way to my place for Thanksgiving.
What was even more amazing was that all my guests had been to my home.
More than once. More than twice.
I invited my mom and Uncle over. Recall that my family gets lost in phone booths? Well…my uncle was driving. Mom has no night vision. They were running late.
Two siblings. In a car. Yes, they are in their 60s but do siblings ever really grow up?
I wasn’t there but I can guess at the play-by-play.
Everyone was invited to come over at 5pm. My uncle calls at 4:40pm (he’s very punctual) saying, “We’re running late.” No surprise. Mom is seldom on time.
I say it’s okay – I’m shooting to have the food ready around 5:30pm and see ‘em soon. Mom doesn’t live far.
I had also invited a friend over. Mr. B. Mr. B and I used to work together and have been on the road together a few times, too. He’s bald, burly and my good bud. It’s freaky but we think alike.
We both have a poor sense of direction. Both of us are expert U-turners. One time we were on site together, I was at the wheel. I was in the wrong lane for a U-turn and we ended up on some turnpike in Philadelphia. We’re both still recovering.
Mr. B calls me around 5pm. He tells me he’s lost. He knows he’s in the vicinity but he needs help. I attempt to be some type of GPS asking him to read street signs while I look at a map.
Then my cell phone rings. It’s my uncle. My cordless home phone has a headset. My headset is feeding Mr. B into my right ear and my cell phone is feeding my uncle into my left.
I’m telling you, this stuff just writes itself.
My uncle tells me he’s lost and tells me the street he’s on. Most people end up on that street when they visit me for the first time. My uncle has been to my place at least 3 times.
I tell Mr. B to hold on a bit, that uncle is on my cell and is lost. Mr. B reads my blog and while he has never met my family, he has some idea of our antics.
I give my uncle some guidance and tell him that I’m on the other phone directing my friend. My uncle says he will turn around and then call again later.
Mr. B and I manage to get him my place. I buzz him in. A few minutes later, I hear a knock AND a doorbell and I open the door to a beaming Mr. B bearing Brie, Bass and bread. That would be cheese, ale and a baguette.
He looks good. A diamond stud winks in his left ear. We hug and I bustle around in hostess mode. This year I wasn’t making spaghetti. I was making Bourbon Chicken but instead of Bourbon I was using Southern Comfort. This has little if any pertinence to my tale.
My cell phone rings. It’s my uncle. He says he’s downstairs and isn’t quite sure how to get in. I tell him that he has to lift up the phone at the nearby monitor and punch in my code. This will ring my home phone and then I can buzz him in. He says okay and hangs up.
I’m chatting with Mr. B expecting my phone to ring at any moment. Several minutes go by.
I look at Mr. B.
“I wonder what happened to them? I mean…they were right downstairs.”
Mr. B looks at me.
“I betcha they went to the wrong building.”
I tilt my head.
“But they’ve been here before…my building doesn’t even look like the others…”
My cell phone rings. It’s my uncle telling me they went to the wrong building.
My home phone finally rings and I buzz them in and my doorbell rings and I open the door to my family.
Hugging, introductions, and my uncle saying, “Food smells good.”
We all ate too much, joked around, even looked at old photos. When my uncle started to look sleepy I started putting together boxes of leftovers for him and mom and after several false starts, it was down to me and Mr. B.
Mr. B says to me, “Your mom is just like I imagined.” As I said earlier, Mr. B reads my blog. He takes a sip of his Bass straight out of the bottle.
“I wondered if you might be making stuff up.”
He leans over, looking down at his bottle. He shakes his head and smiles.
“You couldn’t make this stuff up.”
I had my family over for Thanksgiving. We may all get lost but we’re great at U-turns and finding each other again.
I love you, Mr. B. Thanks for being a part of my family.
The above photo was taken this May when I visited London. Good thing the friend I was visiting knows his way around town.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Haha another fun story to display how your family is great. I do enjoy them!
That’s fairly comical that your friend thought it was amazing that your family is really like that as well.
Do you think that you take after your mom/uncle and get lost when you’re going to new places or are you someone who is very methodical in planning out routes, etc? I’m just wondering how much (if at all) it might be in the genes.
Derek: the thing was Mr. B was able to get the full-blown Q experience! He knows how I think so was able to figure out that my mom and uncle went to the wrong building – which I hadn’t even thought of!
There was even MORE funny stuff as I watched brother and sister (my uncle and mom) interact and explain how they got lost.
My mom, uncle and I are pretty methodical with routes BECAUSE we get lost and have no sense of direction. Since I’ve traveled so much I do a lot of planning but I don’t stress out at getting lost, at least not as much as I used to. I HAVE been lost, that’s for sure. Especially in Georgia. It’s true what they say about roads named “Peachtree” – you could be at the intersection of Peachtree and Peachtree but you won’t know which one because the sign doesn’t include E or W or a number or Road/Lane/Blvd.
I have no sense of direction. All I want for Christmas is a Garmin Nuvi 350.
Awh. I am good at getting lost too, but once I go one route, I remember it again the next time. I always seem to make at least one wrong turn though the first time out.
Oh.. he had brie… I heart brie. *drool* I neeeeeed some brie now, badly.
Christine: welcome to the Get Lost Club! Where no one knows where they are! I hope you get your GPS!
I have pretty good “building sense” – I can find my way around office buildings for some reason – maybe it has to do with remembering where the bathrooms are.
Sue: I’m like you (no surprise, what with the Q and the “significantly short” thing) – I might get lost the first time and then I’m fine after that. My “wrong turn” is why I’m Queen Of the U-Turns. I get the “hmm…I think I’m going in the wrong direction…” and have to to a U-ey.
I dislike those roads that cross through 7 major cities or something. If they run West-East they’ll have a something-something West and a something-something East but where does West end and East begin?? I got lost on Ponce de Leon road in Decatur, Atlanta. Gorgeous city but hooo..that first time out it was all good and then I was going back and forth along PDL not sure where I was on my map because there were no numbers and no directions (east or west) and the cross streets were too small to be listed on my rental car map or even my internet maps.
I finally got frustrated and called the hotel and the woman who answered was new to the area! But I finally said something like, “and I’m near this….” and she recognized where this was and was able to tell me about where I was on my map. PHew! Now I knew how to head back.
Brie? Yeah, that Brie Mr. B brought was pretty good…just the right amount of saltiness and it spread guud on the bread. I was pretty good myself – I didn’t eat much of it. I wanted to save my boodah for the Chinese Sticky Rice I had made. I rarely make it but it’s soooo good. It seems decadent (the stickiness makes it seem heavy/greasy) but it ’s probably not so bad – if you don’t eat the sausage!
So far so good on avoiding Holiday Weight Gain!
I Am Lost In My Own House. Power Is Out. Thank Goodness My Mobile Phone Still Works!
eric! Umm…sounds like you didn’t know the answer to the Riddle of the Mountain Troll.
Does the screen on your cell phone give off enough light so you can find your way home ????
I suppose it’s the quirks of our families that not only drives us nuts, but endears us to them, too. Still, it’s our families that root us to the earth. I dread the day that my parents are gone. But in the meantime, I’ve never seen them so happy. It’s like they’ve accepted each others quirks. Sometimes they giggle like two kids.
Jake: Well said! You’re making me thinking of a coin that represents our quirks – Heads we are endearing, Tails (because well, it also represents being an A**) we’re driving someone nuts.
I’m glad your parents are still together and happy. Giggling? That’s sweet! Not too much giggling in the world today. Hmm. Must put that on my list of things to do..regularly! As long as it’s not high-pitched.