Monday night, March 9th, A visitor came calling --late at night. She joked, "Happy Birthday, Stef."
"I thought about you on your birthday, and every day since, but since you came to my house late, I thought maybe this would work as well."
I smile. Blankly.
In an effort to keep the conversation going, I ask, "Was I supposed to come to your house?"
She laughs, "Remember how you came to wish me a be-lated birthday (which was just great!) and so I just thought I'd kind of tease about that..." she seems uncomfortable.
"Anyway, so I made this...it's not nearly as yummy as brownies, but..."
I'm wondering, if she likes brownies so much, I wonder why she didn't make those...maybe she didn't have the ingredients. Does she think my favorite treat is brownies?
"Oh well," I say, "This looks wonderful. Thank you for thinking of me."
"You're welcome. And you can keep the lovely baking dish." I look at it, surprised. "That's so nice of you. Are you sure?"
"It's yours." Her face shows a bit of confusion.
"Oh." I laugh. "I wouldn't even have remembered." She laughs harder.
She hands me a pink envelope. "I chose a special card. I think you should open it right now."
"Okay." I smile. Then in trying to figure out how to keep Maxler's hands from ripping it, I hand her back her cake.
The card pictures an elderly woman in horn-rimmed glasses looking wide-eyed and a bit ruffled. She says, "My memory is SO bad..." An unseen person responds, "How bad IS it?"
Open the card. The woman shows even more confused. She says,"How bad is WHAT?"
My friend has written, "see what we have to look forward to?"
Oh dear. We laugh a little more. I recognize that this seems a very fitting card, but still don't pull off any good punch lines. After she leaves, I return to Zach in the kitchen. "Did we bring her something in this pan?"
"Yeah Mom. Don't you remember? A couple of weeks ago we took her a whole pan of brownies and you had us all sing to her."
Oh dear.
4 comments:
Stef, this is unreal. I read it to my friend Sister Wright and we were both crying with laughter. You are much too young to deal with this but we both could identify with the problem. Hang in there. You'll find people are very kind. MOM
If Jed didn't look like you, I'd swear it was you and I who were related by blood!
I was going to comment earlier, but I forgot until now. .. So funny, Stef!
Anita!! Hahahaha.
Reppit, Oh man! It's tough to line up a bunch of gifts that are inside jokes if the other person doesn't remember the part you're playing off. Too funny. I can just see it. Hahahaha.
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