Rob's Mom Part 9: Funny Story- Mom's Trouble with Phones

   This is another entry surrounding the passing of my (Rob) mom and it's quite funny. I call it "Mom's Trouble with Phones."
  About a month before my mom passed (Dec. 29, 2013), I was talking with her on the phone as I did every evening. For some reason over the last couple of years her portable/wireless house phones would always malfunction. Often whenever we were talking, her voice would fade out and come back in, and I couldn't hear her for a while. That happened quite a lot, actually.

REDIRECTING THE BLAME -   Mom kept blaming the phone trouble on the phone company, telling me that her phone lines were somehow mixed in with the phone lines to the nearby hospital. She said "the machines are screwing up my phone line." That wasn't really the problem though.

MANY PHONES IN SEVERAL YEARS -    Over the past couple of years, my two brothers bought her quite a number of different portable phones and no one could understand why they weren't working correctly. I think between my two brothers they went through every single brand on the market. 

THE FUNNY TRUTH COMES OUT -  It was in November that I was  talking with mom and I couldn't hear her. She cursed the portable phone and I heard that! :)
     When the sound returned I asked my mom if she recently talked with my older brother, Steve. She said she did, and they argued (they're very much alike and tended to butt heads on the phone a lot). She cussed a couple of times and said that Steve was about to hang up on her, when she did him one better. "I threw the phone down the hallway," she said!  "That'll teach him to hang up on his mother!"

That funny mother of mine!

    I thought for a minute and burst out laughing on my end of the phone. THAT is why mom has gone through SO MANY PHONES over the last several years!  She would throw them down the hall, against the wall, or slam them down!  Remember, my mom had some dementia in the couple of years before she passed, so as I was laughing she asked how our dogs are doing. I said to her, "Mom, no wonder your phones don't work - you're throwing them down the hallway after you talk with Steve!"
  To which she replied, "who is throwing the phone down the hallway?"  Oh jeez!!!! I'm still laughing over this conversation.

OUR WACKY EXPERIENCE WITH MOM'S PHONES - During the week of mom's services, Tom and I and two of our dogs were staying at mom's house. My brother called one morning at 7 a.m. and I ran into the kitchen to answer the phone. It didn't work. I ran into the den because the phone was still ringing and I picked up another phone to find it disconnected!  I ran into another room and a phone was in on the floor (not connected) and broken. Of course, by the time I found the one phone that still worked somewhat, the call went to voicemail!  :)

NEXT: ANOTHER FUNNY MOM STORY: DUNKIN' ADVENTURE