the long road home

I'm not good with quiet. I have the tv on in the background - usually the news - almost all the time. When I work in the greenhouse, more often than not I take my laptop out with me and have a tv show playing to keep me company. (Gilmore Girls and Friday Night Lights are current faves.) For some strange reason though, I absolutely detest listening to people talk on the radio. Music only please. The dj saying that was 'such and such a song' from 'so and so' pushes the limits of just how much radio talk I can handle. The other day as I was driving home from a shopping trip, it just so happened that the Christian radio station I listen to was on a fundraising bender. Fundraising lends itself to an overly abundant amount of talking by anyone's standards, and for various and assorted reasons I didn't have anything in my cd player. You can see my dilemma. Silence vs. a radio station begging for money.

Silence won out.....for all of a minute.


I had a one hour drive ahead of me, and in a desperate attempt to entertain myself, I started calling members of my immediate family.

I called my hubby and told him I was bored and would he please entertain me. To his credit, he gave it a good try, but we'd already talked three previous times that day, so it was pretty slim pickings. Plus, he was actually engaged in some lame money making scheme....I think he called it working?

Work, schmork.

I'd already had a very pleasant conversation with my oldest while I was shopping earlier in the day, and my youngest was still in school where apparently they frown on phone calls during algebra class.

My future daughter in law was at work, so that wasn't an option, although I know in my heart that she would have kept me company all the way home. She's cool like that.

Time to move on to my middle child. He's getting ready to deploy, but I knew that on this particular day, he had some time on his hands.


However, it was our second phone call of the day, and all valid conversation topics had been thoroughly depleted in conversation number one. So in order to fill the awkward silence, I asked him if he knew any classified military secrets, and if he did would he tell me what they are?

He said no.

No? How can you tell your mother no? It is common knowledge that you should tell your mother absolutely anything and everything she wants to know.

So, I asked him what if I offered to pay him. Would he tell me then?

He said no again.

We then proceeded to argue over whether treason has to include a foreign government, or does selling classified government secrets to your overly bored mother qualify you for a lifelong visit to Leavenworth?

This went on for a while, I mentioned something about waterboarding, and then he laughed a lot and said he would love to see me try, and then he told me he was hanging up, which was a little on the rude side, but it was probably just as well, because by now our conversation had most likely attracted the attention of the CIA. Or the NSA. Or whoever it is who listens to all our phone conversations.

Come to think of it, this post has probably attracted the very same folks.

The upside to all this is that America can rest assured. Your national secrets are safe with my middle child. For that matter, they are also safe with my oldest child too, because we had an eerily similar conversation several years ago about Coast Guard secrets, which had the exact same end result.

I have obviously failed as a mother.

At this point, I had no choice but to call my husband again, but I won't bore you with those details except to say that the only topic we had not thoroughly exhausted was whether or not the garbage man had picked up our garbage that day. Sadly, my hubby showed absolutely no interest in popping out to the road to check, and at that exact moment, my youngest swooped in to save the day by innocently calling to ask what was for dinner.


Now, I can just hear you asking yourself why, why, why is she telling us this?
You're wondering what the moral of this rambling story is? Surely, there must be a life changing, earth shattering truth about to be revealed? Certainly, she wouldn't waste an awesome post title like "the long road home" on a story that is truly only about a long ride home?

Truth be told, I just had some sunshiny daffodil photos to share, and a raging case of writer's block. You get the benefit of the former, and the brunt of the latter.

But now that we're on the subject, I'd love to know if you enjoy a bit of silence, or are you like me and hate to be alone without some form of auditory company?

Love talk radio, or despise it with every fiber of your being?

Are you a phone talker, (like me), or a phone call avoider?

Happy Monday, everyone!