COME AGAIN, DEAR?

TLW (The Little Woman) who is really Mother Theresa, and me, often visit this friend of the family, who is in her mid-eighties and almost totally deaf. She is so deaf if you sit next to her, cup your hands around her ear and shout, she will say: “Come again dear?”

When she calls and I see caller I.D. identifying who it is: if I am alone, I don’t answer, if TLW is home I say: “It’s for you!” This may be ungentlemanly to do, but she does not hear you on her phone, as you repeat and repeat yourself until you are horsed, then collapse with the phone still in your grasp and tears streaming down your face.

But if TLW is talking to her on the phone, well, that IS a different story. Then we can comment as we move about. (Never be a stationary target for an angry woman) It can be very funny as she states her message, and tries to correct what the lady thought you said.

Calling her is the biggest challenge. I NEVER call her on the phone because Mr. Bell did not mean for the phone to be banged against the wall.  But TLW will call, because she has a need to exercise her voice and a deep obligation to see to the elderly, infirmed and deaf, and so you know why she married me.

“Hello, Rosetta, its Ellen… NO ELLEN, ELLLLLEN, How are you?”

There is some swarking in the receiver and TLW begins again:

 

“Ellen… No, NOT HELEN, ELLEN, YOU KNOW JOE AND ELLEN… NO, NOT JOANNA…NO, NOT JOELLEN.”

Both sides declare a truce and TLW ends it with: “IT WAS NICE TO SPEAK WITH YOU! I SAID… goodbye.”

The woman is in failing health, and lives a great distance from us. She has adopted us as her own since she has no family of her own and one nephew who lives over 90 miles away. She has decided to stay in her home and not go anywhere, so naturally Mother Theresa worries about her, and so do I. She is paranoid and thinks people are living in her basement, trying to take over her house, and has a 24/7 caretaker who lives with her.

Oh God, THE PHONE!!!!