Thursday, August 7, 2008

Senility Is Hereditary

Like a lot of people, I moved in to MySpace a few years ago and packed up my shit recently and moved out. I can't log in at work and half the time when I log in at home, I get all sorts of errors and general nonsense that wastes my precious internets time. I'll check in from time to time to add new family photos as needed and update the all-important music player selection. Other than that, it's being maintained on a less frequent basis, but before I cleaned up the place, I wanted to preserve the following real-life, honest injun phone conversation that I had with my parents a few years ago. None of it is made-up and the dialogue is verbatim.
The back story is this: My parents were getting ready to go on vacation to Napa Valley to celebrate my Dad's 60th birthday. My Mom's brother was also coming along, and for a moment my Aunt was also scheduled to come, but she cancelled at the last minute. The two of them were on the phone with me, explaining why my aunt couldn't come.
I talk to my parents on the phone to the tune of once every other week. They are going out to Napa for my Dad's birthday, and they invited my Aunt and Uncle to come with them. The Aunt determined at the last minute that she couldn't go. The following is an absolutely true transcript of the phone conversation (they were, of course, on the phone with me at the same time) detailing why she couldn't come:

Mom: She just had a pharmacist quit and instead of replacing her, they're getting a robot.
Me: A robot?
Mom: Yeah. They've got one at the pharmacy in Carthage too.
Dad: Do they really? I didn't know that!
Mom: Yeah. I haven't seen it...But I guess they have to train it where to go...
Me: There's a robot trainer?
Dad: Well, they have to train the workers...
Mom: Yeah. In case they need to change it's path, the people there need to know how to do it, and I guess there's someone who comes in and shows them how to do it.
Me: So you're serious? It's an actual robot?
Dad: I guess she's doing well...She's making a lot of money.
Mom: Well Mom said she got a half a million dollars...
Dad: (interrupting) Yeah...this is from the "source."
Mom: ...from her Uncle when he died.
Dad: He didn't have any kids, you know.
Me: So she bought a robot for the pharmacy?
Mom: I guess. But then the guy who was going to train them how to use the robot couldn't come down until the time we'd be out in California
Dad: So now it's just the three of us.
Mom: They have to show them how to do something to it if they want to change it's path, I guess.
Me: So they bought a robot to replace a worker.
Mom: Yeah. I don't know if it says anything.
Dad: It's not humanoid...
Mom: I know, but...
Me: Do you realize how bizarre this conversation is?
Dad: (laughs) Like Ray Bradbury!

On a related note, my parents just got back from Italy to celebrate my Mom's 60th birthday. They brought me back a silver bookmark and a silver pillbox. Now I can keep my pills nice and dry when I read Dostoevsky.

1 comment:

Your Humble Proprietor said...

You know the only reason they didn't replace MLK with a robot was because they had no one to train it.