some lights seem eternal
in this springtime of hope

chest pains

May 26, 2005
My phone number has accidentally been given out as the maintenance number at one of the assisted living facilities here in Stepford. We do not know which one or we would let them know but we are currently afraid to answer the phone because irate and obscene old people keep calling our apartment leaving messages about what is not working in their apartment. A typical phone message goes like this, �You lazy son-of-a-bitch, my toilet is backed up and there is shit all over my bathroom,� or �Help me! Help me! The garbage disposal is spitting broccoli all over my apartment � I am in 108, hurry!� We are working on this, but we do not answer the phone because if we tell them we are not maintenance they call us lying sons of bitches instead lazy sons of bitches.

If I were maintenance, I sure would not rush to help you with your feces fish bowl of a bathroom after being called a lazy son of a bitch (and they have not even met my mother � gosh) and I think they need to call a priest if the garbage disposal is throwing broccoli back at you. Either your disposal is possessed or President George H.W. Bush is hiding in it. I cannot imagine getting THAT phone call at the cloisters, �Can you help us? We need an old priest and a young priest � whatever Theresa Heinz Kerry had is now tormenting our plumbing.�

I am lazy, though. My answering machine in college said, �You have reached James and Chris�s room. We are either not here or too lazy to answer the phone. Leave a message.� This is the truth, I trended toward letting the machine get it and with old people cursing me on my home phone I am starting to screen again.

I am just glad they have not hit my sister with their foul-mouthed messages. If you think they had problems now, just imagine what would happen if they started cursing at her! She would tolerate that not at all. Whoever gets her on the phone had better have first alert or whatever that, �Help me, I�ve fallen and I can�t get up!� Because they would definitely be the, �I��m�having�chest�pains�� dude. If my sister could be described in the science fiction paradigm when it came to her dealing with people cursing at her, she is that alien that: unhinges her jaw, swallows you whole, spits our your bones three seconds later, burps � not unlike Secretary of State Condi Rice.

We went to this dinner, my sister, Mary Tyler Moore, Dr. A and some of her students and I. Dr. A�s students included two Midwestern conservatives and a delightful liberal from California. One of the conservative students announced during a discussion about politics that she would rather slit her wrists that vote for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Politically, my sister and I are opposite so that was a statement that was certain to solicit a response from my sister. Mary and I are sad to report that we did not get to see one of her famous disemboweling acts.

We had let Dr. A know in advance that her students would get to meet the consummate New York liberal embodied not in the moderate Senator Clinton but in my sister, Chaos �Ted Kennedy does not go far enough� Bean. In fact, I think I am still disappointed in how things turned out. There is always next time, I am sure.

2:56 PM :: 7 comments so far ::
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