Phone Fogginess

I am sorry to have to do this to y'all, but I need to begin this week with a confession.

It IS holy week, after all.

Friday was one of those days. John should have just taken me by the hand and led me around for the entire day and duct taped my mouth shut. I was so foggy that it seemed that I couldn't remember anything. I began the day by calling to make an appointment with my dermatologist, and needed to leave my request on an answering machine.

*We're not in the office right now, but your message is important to us! Please leave your name, health record number and return telephone number at the tone. BEEEEEEEEP*

"Hello. This is Julia. And my medical record number is.....um.....gosh. Is it 234... no it's 4417 something.... no that's not right....Well, isn't that just....I need to call back! Click."

Can't you jut see the appointment secretary's face as she listened to THAT one.

Good grief. Like most sjoggies, my medical record number is one of the few things that is usually permanently burned into my brain. I scoured my purse for the insurance card and waited a few minutes before sheepishly calling back. I considered trying to disguise my voice but realized that the caller ID number would be the same as my previous call. This would only add to the weirdness of my attempt to make an appointment.

I bumbled my way through the rest of the day. Running into walls, aimlessly wandering from room to room trying to remember what I had forgotten to do that took me into that room, getting crankier by the minute. I took a nap and awoke crankier than before.

Up until this point my day, while annoying, was nothing particularly unusual for my foggy days.

Until.

I was listening to my voice mail messages, specifically one from my mom. I love my mom's messages, since she speaks to the answering service the same way that she would have a conversation with me. Her messages go on for at least three minutes and when she's finished, I feel as though we've had quite the conversation.

So I was standing there, listening, and somewhere into the message about thirty seconds or so, I forgot that this was a recorded message from my mother.

I began to try to speak to her.

"Mom..."

blah blah blah blah blah...

"Oh, Mom?"

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah....

"MOM! Can't you hear me?!"

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah....

"MOM!! WHY WON'T YOU LISTEN TO ME? ARE YOU OK? HELLOOOOO? MOTHER? MOOOOOOOOOOM!!!"

Well, it's been nice talking to you honey, talk to you later, ok? Ok! Click.

I blinked in astonishment. Did my mother just HANG UP ON ME? We never hang up on each other. I was furious.

Greg had stopped by for a Friday night game of darts with John, and unfortunately was witness to the whole thing. I could see his eyes widen with surprise as I began yelling into the telephone. At my MOTHER.

I stormed into the living room and flopped down on the couch, fuming. As I sat there stewing away, it gradually dawned on me that I was having an argument with Verizon's automated message service. Oh, brother.

Should I 'fess up to Greg about my total brain absenteeism? Which would be worse - to have him think that I was mindless or completely rude to my sweet mom?

Hm. The answer was obvious, even to foggy me. Greg knows all about my foggy days. I think his first real experience with foggy Julia was the day that I walked face first into a glass patio door. Which was closed. And he was on the other side.

They still talk about that one.

On the other hand, Mom and I haven't really argued since I was a bratty thirteen year old. Well, not a yelling kind of disagreement, anyway... I wouldn't want him to think that I would really be that disrespectful.

So I had to haul myself out onto the front porch where Greg and John had retreated and admit my seriously foggy lapse in judgment. Yikes.

I knew there was only one cure for this sort of thing, and it involved hopping into my snuggly bed and shutting the old brain down for an eight hour re-boot.

So I did. I decided just before I fell asleep that the fault was not mine - it was those stupid answering machines. Yes. Yes, they're the culprit, for sure. Couldn't be me.

The end. I feel so much better now.