When Life Gives You Voicemails...

 Let's lighten it up.

I'm going to tell you about the time my mom left me a voicemail about lemonade.

 To preface, my mother is the greatest of all time. 

She has a heart of gold, but smokes like a chimney, cusses like a sailor, and over 80% of her spine is fused metal so she stands up very straight all the time. 

I. ADOREEEE. HER. 

We don't agree on everything, we don't see eye to eye often, but she is literally my most favorite woman on the planet.

I got married in the fall and my first holiday as a newly married woman was fast approaching. I asked what side dish I should bring because "I'm an adult now."

She said she couldn't think of anything and being one of the older grandchildren and married, nobody had thought of me to bring any covered dish. 

Fine. However, the night before the get together I get a voicemail from Linda (that's what I call her more than mom; it's an old habit.)

 I kept it on my phone for the world to enjoy:

"Hey. *eating/swallowing/chewing something* Hey. I just thought of this. You can bring the pink lemonade. Do you know about Country Time? It is in a container with a screw off lid. You just dump the sugar stuff in the lid. Well, you measure it. *under her breath* Damn this.... well... Oh, I am untangling this damn necklace... anyways... it's like sugar and you mix it in water. So measure the water. I think the container tells you. Like the amount of sugar and water. It says it. Kroger has it. I didn't know if you had time to... *under her breath* Get off of there! I didn't know if you had any time, but it's simple sugar and-

And that was the end of the voicemail because she ran out of time.

But no worries, she called back.

"Hey. It's me. I think something happened to my phone. You need to call Verizon. This damn piece of shit. Put that on your list. "Call Verizon for mom." Do you have a list? Anyways, the sugar is mixed with the water. Put it in a container and bring it to Thanksgiving. Cold, not cold, I'm sure it will be fine either way. We have ice. Okay. I got to go. Okay, bye-bye."



And then there was a third voicemail.

"Hey, it's me again. What do you think 2 gallons or 3 gallons? I would actually say two and half. Maybe you don't have a pitcher that big? Hold on, let me see if I do. *reaching, grunting, heavy breathing* Damn it, this is not it. Why is that stained like that? Well shit... I don't know. Use your judgement. The side of that container may not say two and half though, Samantha. You might have to do math. You know, you could do taste tests along the way. It's whatever. I just don't know what to tell you to put it in... maybe you have milk jugs you can save and clean out. But it's tomorrow... hold on *more grunting, stretching, reaching,* Oh hell... Well, maybe you can figure someth-

And she was cut off again because she ran out of time.

And the final voicemail...

"Samantha? Samantha, call Verizon when you get this. Tell them I need longer voicemail times. Maybe you can get into my settings? Ok, I got too much shit to do. Call me when you get this."


I love her.

To smithereens.

Much love always,

Samantha

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Good Bad Things

Image
  60 years ago today, on August 1, 1964, the course of history changed. Evans Dunlap, one of the two brothers who owned, managed, and worked the Dunlap & Co empire, was killed alongside his wife in a car accident. They were headed for Michigan when a drunk driver slammed into their vehicle. Evans and Isabel, both in their 40s, were killed instantly and left behind four children ages 12 to 20. And everything that could have been, was no more. Dunlap & Co was a business that America needed, and a business that has never since come about. Imagine Sears - where you could order a two story 1,900 square foot home. But add the layer of you could customize many more aspects and a crew would come and build it. And build it well and build it fast. And imagine it’s the 1950s. That was the vision and path Dunlap & Co was on. Land leveling and clearing, foundations, lumber, finish work, contractors, to tacking the letters on the mailbox… They. Did. It. All. But then… in a blink of a...
Read more

But the greatest is…

Image
 ​As I begin to mentally and physically wrap up my year at Dunlaps, I like to take time to reflect, as I always do.  And you’d think I’d be all thoughts and feels about it regarding our 150th year.  And I am. But I’m… not. It's been a year, my friends. A long, not easy, muddled, exhausting year. Stiffed money, scammed majorly, mistreated at times by people who refuse to take ownership of their own actions. It is crazy easy for me to find the hard this year.  I always do this to myself. It’s probably why I continue to grow more and more pessimistic as time marches on, which I hate. I always play a situation up. I have high expectations and a vision for something and it falls not just some short, but so much short of what I thought it would be that I’m thoroughly disappointed.   I've been struggling a lot with understanding systems and schools of thought.  Questioning every move I make. Trying to see why there would be an option 2 and 3 and 4 in th...
Read more

A Thousand Days...

Image
Today, March 28th, 2023, we celebrate our one thousandth day at Dunlaps.  What a journey it has been... We have learned so much about our community, the lumber market, products of all types - from tapcons to strike plates to stain to underlayment and everything in between. We've learned about what it means to maintain a business and what it takes to grow a business. And how nearly impossible those tasks can be. I've learned about a global pandemic can do to shipping and the price of raw materials. Sadly, I've learned that big businesses have found ways to create shortages to overinflate prices and hurt little guys and small town America. But on the other side, I've learned how important our dinky hardware store can be and how needed we are.  There have been so many memories and moments jammed into those thousand days. I think about some of our first moments -- they were such a blur and so scary. I think about how tight money has been at times and sing that one Oak Ridge...
Read more