Wait, I Have a Great Excuse

I sat in an extremely noisy restaurant with three of my friends waiting for one more to arrive. I love the latecomer dearly, but after being friends for over 25 years, I know the only way to get her somewhere on time is to lie to her about the meeting time. I accept her flaw because other than her dysfunctional internal time clock, she’s a terrific person. When we formed this Mah Jongg group years ago, we should have told her we would meet at 11:30 for lunch before heading to one of our homes to play Mah Jongg. If we fibbed, maybe—just maybe—she would arrive at the real time, 11:45 most of the time. As soon as one of the gals told Ms. Perpetually Late the real gathering time, I knew she’d rarely, if ever, show before noon.

After several years of playing with her, we’re used to her tardiness and listening to all the upheavals that justifiably delay her—excuses that make us forget she is late. She, in turn, has learned if she’s late and wants to eat, she has two choices. If she’ll only be around 15-minutes late, she can call one of us on our cell and tell us what to order for her. More than that, she needs to order take-out and eat on the run. None of the players in our game wants to spend a half-hour waiting for her to order and finish eating if we’re about to pay the check when she arrives.

She’s far from the only person who is always late. My manicurist tells a story about a client of hers who was always a half hour late, and like my friend, always rushes in with legitimate excuses. She said the client thinks she has a 2 o’clock appointment, but it’s really 2:30. She told me that the one time the client was “on time,” she was livid she had to wait!

Back to my story—this week, by the time the waiter came to take the order, my friend still hadn’t called, which I must admit is unusual for her. Our meals were being served when she rushed through the front door laden down by her up-to-date, over-sized, and over-stuffed bag.

“None of your phones are answering,” she exclaimed. “I’ve be calling all of you for an hour.”

One by one, we reached into our bags. One phone said no service, the others said “Missed Call, listen to the message.”

“See,” she said. “I did try to call.”

Since it was obvious the noise in the restaurant muffled our phones, I placed my phone in my pocket so I could hear it. I didn’t bother to dial my voice mail. Instead, I listened to a first hand account of all the calamities that occurred that morning causing my friend to be 45-minutes late.

When the afternoon was over, I called my husband to tell him I was on the way home.

“It’s about time you returned my call,” he almost growled.

Whoops. I guessed I had more than one message in my voice mail.

Now what creative excuse could I come up with for not checking my voice mail? I couldn’t. Instead, I told him if it was that important, he should have called back. Nothing works better, than turning the tables if you can’t come up with a valid excuse.

Midnight Games

Midnight Games

There are two stages of life that most humans sleep in three to four hour segments— infancy and old age. As a wee one, when you awoke in the middle of the night, you were fed and then either fell back to sleep or were rocked back to lullaby land in your Mama’s arms or something snuggly like a carriage or cradle.

But, alas, the same two methods don’t work for we old(er) folks. If I conk out before ten—way before—I’m up for “the night” around midnight. When this habit started a couple of years ago, I raided the fridge for a midnight snack. As healthy as this is for wee folks because the calories are needed for their growth and well-being, it doesn’t work the same for old folks like me. We’re at the age where we’re shrinking lengthwise, and extra calories will have us growing outwards instead of restoring height. Even worse, a few sips of warm milk may make me sleepy, but unless the milk is accompanied by warm chocolate cake or several chocolate chip cookies, I gag. Obviously, the late night snack is not a sleep remedy for me. Being “rocked” in someone’s arms is a bad idea in my house also. Snuggling next to a husband who has a tendency to snore in my ear won’t ever lull me back to sleep.

Lately I have noticed a tremendous amount of the jokes I’ve received have been sent during the hours most folks prefer to be sleeping. One friend, when asked why, told me when she wakes from her early evening night “nap,” she finds spending time at the computer lulls her back to sleep like rocking probably once did. At her suggestion, I “hit the computer” at midnight a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, the first email I opened was politically toxic so it had quite the opposite effect that I yearned for.

Since then, the only “midnight” emails I open are obvious jokes or message of how blessed I am to have so many fantastic and wonderful friends. Smiles and compliments usually relax me enough to be able to hit the sack again. Last night, however, when done reading and sending the belly laughs or sentimental slop on, I still didn’t feel the urge to return to bed. Instead, I switched to Facebook to “spy” on my kids and grandkid’s lives. When reading anything my family posts on Facebook it is best for me to never comment, no matter how much I want to do so. I surmised this because just about every one of my comments is instantly “hidden.”

Anyway, back to the point. I glanced at the “who’s on” list on Facebook and immediately realized I had enough gal friends who had also arisen from their “evening nap” to either make a Bridge or Mah Jongg game. Does anyone know of a site we can all access simultaneously so we can play a game together instead of just chatting our sleeplessness away? It seems like such a waste of time to simply write, “You up too?”

Dueling Tiles

At least once a week I’m on the phone with our friends who moved into their 55+ development in Georgia around the same time as Hubby and I moved into ours in Boynton Beach. We constantly compare notes about our adjustments. This week we both discussed the root of many conflicts in both of our developments. What are they? Hold onto your hats—Mah Jongg, Poker, and/or Canasta.

How? Well, it’s like this. If the men are playing poker for money, now and then they play with a sore loser. If the winner's wife is friendly with the wife of the sore loser, then expect a strain in that relationship. And if both poker players were once part of the same social click, then their group is going to have to make big decisions as to which couple they will go to the early bird special.

My favorite game, Mah Jongg, causes problems too, especially if you are playing with someone who hasn’t improved since the day she graduated the Mah Jongg Academy—and even worse, the player is a close friend or your daughter’s-in-law mother. I mean, no one wants to take a chance and hurt someone they care about. Still, few players want to sit and drum on the table while one person spends ten minutes trying to decide what to throw. The problem then becomes, “What to do about Mary?”

Since the other 4 players are chicken to come out and politely tell Mary she needs to return to Mah Jongg school, the better players drop hints like repeating, “Whose turn is it?” every minute. Some people would hear the frustration of the other players in their voices, realize the game isn’t for them, and bow out. Sadly, bad players are also bad at taking polite hints. They don’t even notice the other players rolling eyes, pinching each other under the table or even playing hangman on a piece of scrap paper while waiting for her to discard a tile.

So, when the hint fails, and the bad canasta or Mah Jongg or Bridge players don’t exit graciously, the problems in Seniorville begin. In both my friend’s development and mine, we’ve been told that asking someone to drop out of a Mah Jongg or Canasta game because their slow playing is driving all the other players bonkers can begin a Hatfield and McCoy feud.

Now, since no one really knows what started that infamous feud, I have a question. Did researchers check to see if either of their wives every played Mah Jongg or Canasta with each other?

Blame It on the Ringtone

I didn't win one Mah Jongg game yesterday because every one of the players received too many phone calls. Each interruption was necessary and more than acceptable, but -

The different ringtones of everyone’s cell phones had my mind on anything but the game. Sometimes I wonder if advertisers pay cell phone companies to do subliminal advertising via the selection of songs everyone seems to use for ringtones. Each unique signal of incoming calls yesterday forced my mind off of my game.

When we started to play a few years ago, a few of us used the conventional ringtones offered by our cell phone carriers. This created minor confusion when our phones rang since our purses were usually near each other’s, so we all switched to unique ringtones. Yesterday, the blast of "When the Saints Come Marching In" signaled pictures of an adorable grandchild that all the grandmas at the table enjoy seeing. The only problem with that ringtone is it makes me hungry for a beignet – the fried donut-like cake they sell in New Orleans.

Another friend’s ring is reminiscent of the songs played by the Caribbean bands as passengers board the cruise ships headed for the islands. Instead of thinking about the hand I was playing in Mah Jongg, I had the urge to do the Conga around the table with a Pina Colada in my hand.

"Rocky Mountain High" had me remembering some of the most beautiful sites I’ve ever seen. Instead of concentrating on what tiles the other players were discarding, I was thinking of the fun my family had when we went water rafting down the Snake River.

The second time the phone with a song about New York rang, I decided that instead of making Tilapia for dinner, I would stop by the deli after the game and buy some corned beef and fresh rye bread.

Perhaps if my phone rang, I would have won a game or two. If my "Lullaby and Good Night" ringtone had the same effect on my friends as their ringtones were having on me, perchance they would have dozed off during the game. The way I played yesterday, that would have been the only way I could have won a game.