Odd Happenings

This afternoon as I walked through the kitchen, I noticed that the answering machine was flashing that there was a message. Being the good little robot that I am, I veered over to the machine to give a listen. When I pressed the play button there was a period of noise followed by a rather shaky rendition of "...have you talked to your mother today...". The call ended with some additional noise, leading me to think that I had been butt dialed by a octogenarian.

I almost deleted the message, but there was something familiar about the voice. So I checked the caller ID and sure enough it was mom's friend Ruth (who does indeed happen to be in her 90's).

I did the logical thing and called mom to see if she knew what was happening. (I was planning to call her cell phone next and then head over to her house if I still hadn't reached her.) Mom's first words after hello were "so you got a call from Ruth too?" Turns out that Ruth had called just about everyone out of concern for mom this morning when mom's phone busied out off-hook and Ruth couldn't reach her.

After we got that all straightened out, mom was laughing at what had happened. She had a call this morning and the caller had wanted a recipe. So mom set down the phone she had answered and grabbed another phone to discuss the recipe (I suspect after she found it.). After completing the call, she hung up the phone in hand, but forgot to hang up the other phone. So her phone line rang busy off-hook and Ruth could not get mom on the phone, thus triggering the string of calls, including the one I received.

It's good that mom has dedicated and concerned friends like Ruth. But I do hope that in the future she'll call me on my office line - that way she might get me immediately rather than the answering machine and me at some indefinite time in the future.  And it would be nice if said something like "This is Ruth." when she gets the answering machine. {*grin*}