Why I'm Not a Phone Person. Or a Listening Person. Just Read This.

If you ever feel like you are talking to me but I am not really listening to you, don't be offended; it is because I use up my entire year's worth of listening ability in three weeks at home.

Let me explain. If you've ever met my sister, you might think she is the reason. But my mom is exactly the same. Having them around is like having two machine guns constantly going off except that instead of shooting bullets they are using words. Sometimes I'm not sure which one is worse. Kidding, I love my family. I might love them more if I invested in some ear plugs though.

No, I'm sorry. I know I got half this trait. I'm like a balance of my parents. Sometimes I won't tell you anything and sometimes you can't get me to shut up. Anyway, when my dad calls me our conversations last for four minutes max, unless he happens to get a business call on the other line and I have to wait for like minutes before either he comes back and says "hey, I have to take this, everything's okay with you? Okaygreatbye" or I get bored and hang up. When my mom calls, I have to clear my schedule for the next thirty minutes. At least. This is why I tend not to pick up her calls when I'm at work, in class, about to be in class, or studying. Or watching a tv show. Or movie. Or talking to my friends. Mostly I just call her when I'm walking somewhere or if I get left home alone. It's a pretty good system and usually works, unless my mom goes into Helicopter Mode and (as when I didn't pick up in Vegas) freaks out if I ignore a call. This often leads to text messages like this one from Iz while I was still in Vegas:

Hi moms worried call her back

Yeah, I didn't. Mostly because I read it at like 1 in the morning and was out of my mind drunk and I was like "wtf is this" and then fell asleep.

Or this one a few days later when I was taking a nap and ignored another call:

Mom asked me if anything is wrong with you and I said no.. And then she's like if somethings wrong you have to tell me >:O hmm?? And I was like there's nothing I dunno!! And she sighed a big one

And then later that night my mom reinforced the message with a text of her own:

Hi, baby, i wish you are doing good, if you got any problem, must let me know, ok? Love you!

And of course the whole "love you" thing stabbed me in the heart like a stake of guilt, so when I replied I was very, very assuring and only slightly annoyed as evidenced by my heavy use of exclamation marks, though I did soften it with a smiley:

Hi mommy, I'm fine!! Stop worrying! Just my last few days here so I'm seeing all my friends before I leave :) ok? See you soon!!

But I mean it was effective, because I got this in reply, and no phone calls for a good 12 hours or so:

Ok, that's good. Yeah, i think i worry too much. That's mom! :)

I guess it's kind of cute. And it's not like I totally ignore the calls on purpose, sometimes I just don't have the energy for the time and active listening this kind of phone call neccesitates. I hate talking on the phone but I guess my mom and sister don't have that problem.

But I totally went off course. My whole point is that as much listening as I need to do with them while I'm at school, it's a thousand times worse at home. Because there's two of them. And I think sometimes they team up on me.

For example, when I got off the airplane, Iz talked for like two hours straight. I'm serious, we went to get a late lunch and I'd already finished my pho (no easy feat, I was hungover and hadn't had a real meal in like 48 hours) and she still had a full bowl because she was way too busy chattering to eat. One of the things she told me about was how my mom had left watermelon slices in the sink overnight the other day by accident, and the next morning there were ants. Don't ask me the point of telling me that, the content of all our conversations are similar to this. But my point is my mom just came over (like literally five minutes ago) to tell me the exact same story. I'd given up trying to be polite about five years ago and whenever the beginning of a story sounds vaguely familiar, I try to quickly interject with "oh yeah, mom/Iz (depending on who's talking) told me already, haha!" This hardly ever works though, for example, this time my mom was like "oh, Iz told you? hahahah!" and then proceeded to retell the story in her own way, which was basically not very different from Iz's way. There are only so many ways to tell a story about watermelon slices in the sink.

And sometimes it's worse. Iz also told me a little 'story' about Poops' Chinese name and how hilarious it was that he wasn't sure what exactly it was and my mom spent like thirty minutes puzzling over it. Then when I got home, our mom attempted to tell me the same story, and Iz was there too, and I was like "oh yeah, Iz told me already, haha!" except before my mom could even have a chance to consider not telling the story, Iz said "ooh but I don't think I told it right! tell it again!" And of course the story was exactly the same.

Do you SEE what I have to deal with?? So yeah, if you're talking and I'm not listening, blame my family. Just don't try to talk to them about it. You'll never get off the phone.