Tuesday, December 06, 2005

An Exact* Transcript of a Cell Phone Conversation with my Sister

And by exact, I mean exactly as I remember it.

So the other day, I'm riding in the car with CH and he says his favorite Notorious B.I.G. song is "Mo Money, Mo Problems" because he said "it's absolutely true."







Oh my God, that's so true!











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So, so true!











......









Truly, truly, true! Seriously, I was just like thinking the same thing yesterday.







Having just balanced my pitiful check book that morning :


Really? Because I was just thinking that the only people who say "mo money, mo problems" are people who've forgotten or don't know what's it's like to be poor.








Sigh . . .You know, Ernessa, when they pay you a lot of money to do something, that means they want more out of you.










As a person who doesn’t get paid a lot for her seriously unstressful job, talking to a family member who gets paid a lot for her weirdly stressful one, I take IMMEDIATE and TOTAL offense.


I can't believe you just said that.









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There are people who get paid like absolute shit to do the most stressful jobs.









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Do you really think you work harder than a coal miner? Hmm, do you?









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Cuz you don't.










I'm just saying money has its share of problems, too











I know that. Really I know that. On my worse days, I’m probably happier than Donald Trump. Smarter than Paris Hilton. Much less evil than George Bush.


And I'm a ton less stressed out than my sister, the person who had to cancel her Thanksgiving trip home, while everyone else got their holiday because she’s an Operations Engineer, the one in charge when things at the chemical factory go apeshit – like they did the day before Thanksgiving.

And my problem list only has 35 entries. Still something mean and stubborn in me makes me answer, “And I’m just saying I don’t agree.”

She gets quiet and changes the subject.

And when the lovely self-righteous anesthesia wears off, I’m grateful that the perfect answer to my assertion that “Mo money doesn’t equal mo problems” never occurred to her:

She could have just said “How would you know?”

That would stung me so bad that I would have had to repeat the story to everyone I know with a hint of chagrinned pride in my voice. Like the roller derby story. Have I told you the roller derby story? Well, here it goes:

Back in April ‘05, the Friday before my second roller derby match, I was talking to my sister on the phone. It was 7pm here.

My shy chemical engineer of a sister, who doesn’t have much of a social life, always asks me about all the social things I have planned for the night, before she gets off the phone.

I rarely say, “Nothing,” and I do believe this is why she keeps me around. Actually I know this is why she keeps me around, because when I decided not to date for three months, she was the only one who didn’t encourage me in this and in fact accused me of being boring a mere two weeks in.

Anyway, during this same non-dating period, she asked me what I was going to be doing with my Friday night. And I told her I was really sore from all the extra practice, so I was going to soak in the bath, and then put on a ton of Ben-gay.”

Without missing a beat, she said, “Strange, I was just talking to Grandma, and she said that’s what she’s doing tonight, too.”

I was so stunned, all I could do was laugh. But maybe that was for the best, because even now, when I think back on it, the only answer I can come up with is, “Well, I’m watching Farscape on Netflix, too. Grandma doesn’t watch Farscape. Grandma probably doesn’t even know about Farscape.”

And I don’t think that would have been much of a comeback.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

First, I wonder if Liz knows that you not only posted you entire conversation, but also her picture in your blog.

Second, don't ever post one of our conversations verbatim.

Monique

Ernessa T. Carter said...

Liz, did read this and here was her response: “Actually when I was over at Grandma’s house during Christmas, she was watching Farscape. She knows all about Farscape, Ness. She said it was her favorite show.” My sister is a terrible, terrible human being.