A Dark Tale About My Mother, Me, and a Fax Machine

After bravely patting it's LED....then, running my fingers over that familiar tiny little spot on its glass, I smiled and reflected on when I got a stubborn speck of White Out on it that time...then, I hugged my old friend one last time and I gently loaded up my workhorse HP OfficeJet 85 into the car for a trip to my mother's house in Brazoria County.

I really hated to part with it, but I felt that it was time for me to clear some space around here. In my sordid little laser printer-PCL-toner-eDoc-bloated business, the ink jets are the first to go.

If the truth be told, a lot of my generosity toward Mother in this situation actually had to do with the persuasive evidence that the only space available to put another piece of technology is next to the shower. I am running out of room...but perhaps we can avoid telling the truth. I could live with a modified version for the purposes of this tale...a version which casts me in a magnanimous light would be better.

Let me meander ever so slightly to explain....I have all this techie gear that excuses me from keeping house or decorating properly. What a demanding lot these machines are.

And, there ain't nothing pretty about my place. I am hard core geek-first generation...my CPU never has all it's screws in place because I just might want to peak under those putty colored skirts to see if things are running right. If you know me, you know that I profess to keep all these little electronic time-wasters around because they are requirements to run this massive notary loan closing business of mine. Just between us, I have all these props just to keep my sweet little mother calm enough to play dominoes while I pretend this is a real job, but that's another tale for another day. Geek, refocus thyself!

Sigh, I have refocused and I shall continue on with my tale about Mother's new found method of reminding me, "I am in my second childhood and I am making the most of it, Kid!" (Note: This is a direct quote that scares me to death because she means it.)

So...back to the tale. With only the best of intentions toward Mother, (aside from the clutter problem which is "all about me.") I decided to share my cheerful color printer, which is also a copier and a fax machine. As the old saying goes, "no good deed goes unpunished." (Be real, Brenda...No foister of obsolete electronic clutter goes unpunished either.)

The only reason I am writing this right now, rather than taking my nightly turn in the figurative discipline helmet from hell (aka receiving a fax from Mother) is because the printer is out of ink and I have deceptively convinced Mother that means it will not work as a fax machine until I replace it. (Self, another truism to note-- People who lie to their mothers do not go unpunished.)

~~If I can only stop talking to myself, now, I'd like to get on with this. It's really starting to bog down.~~

What I wanted Mother to get out of the printer was its copying capabilities. I hoped that she could stop feeling as if it were a RED ALERT when she needed a copy of something. No need to ring up her accountant, the mighty man and solver of problems with paper, to wit, Mr. James Clem of Gratzer, Clem and Company. No, I wanted to save me and Jim Clem a little bit of stress

I hoped (secondary to clearing out clutter) that by giving my mom a tool to use to keep her off the streets desperately trying to score a copy of an obituary I'd save her from something painfully reminiscent of the "dope fiends" in the cult classic, Reefer Madness.

I am a good daughter and I was trying to help her out by giving her the printer to use for her occasional copying needs. (Brenda, Wow, that sounds good so let's go with it!) Capriciously, I also off-handedly told her she could use it for the occasional faxing.

And, oh where was my brain?

It was truly love and concern for my mother that prompted me to take her my HP OfficeJet 85. (Continuing to go with my modified version.)

I pulled this fine trick on myself for the right reasons (Liar!)...I thought this would be a real help to her.

I just had no idea how much she would find it helpful--but me? Not so much!

Let me reiterate, "For me - not so much! Not so helpful for me at all."

I am so very pleased with my incredibly brilliant decision to put a weapon of mass distraction into my mother's hands. (Someone? A towel for the sarcasm. It's dripping here.)

I should have known this was going to become a very involved situation. I should not have warped passed my mother's anti-technology personality and pretended that she would decide to LEARN to use the fax machine. This was the vortex of my poor choice-making. I knew that Mother mentally rejects the concepts illuminating inventions and circumstances that did not exist in 1959 or previous thereto.

Mother does not even attempt to grasp concepts existing in regard to the wonders of fax machines, much less the internet. It's my fault. I admit it. I knew my mother before I took her a piece of equipment--AND, I knew that the word "equipment" in and of itself shatters her attention span into split levels which only finite math can comprehensively define.

My mother is my best friend, but we are as different as night and day. My mother is very smart and she's really a refreshingly enjoyable person, as well as a hipster with blue hair. She's open minded about things that some people long ago shut down and refused to consider. And, yes, she's "cool", if you will...we have laughed together until we've wet our pants, split our sides, tears ran down our faces.

Hanging out with her is like hanging out with a kid. Everything is exciting to her...she loves to go, learn and have fun. However, present her with an object of modern technology and it's written all over her face: IF IT comes with an electrical cord and buttons and knobs--ZERO tolerance. She wants to go have fun...no time for this technical crap!

My mother is a silly-heart, a old fashioned gal of solid character, she's a fun-lover-- she sings along with songs playing on Muzac in the grocery store or the doctor's office for Pete's sake! And, true to her southern upbringing, she still does her best to pretend she believes that men are smarter and more adept and capable than she. (Machines and yucky stuff like equipment are not her thing. That's what men are supposed to know about.)

The signs of what would ultimately come as a result of this electronic gift were there long before I took her this printer/copier/fax machine. It's not her personality to deal with machines...and so actually what I did was give her a machine that I would have to talk her through every time she used it to fax me things I did not want to see.

Well...let's take for instance, the newspaper. Mother loves to peruse the local newspaper and clip articles obscurely related to something she thinks is very important for me to know.

She used to drop these packets of Very Important Information into the mail to me, BUT ONLY AFTER reading them to me on the phone. (No matter that I could read them on the newspaper's website as she was reading them to me. She still read them aloud and then she mailed them to me.)

What I have always really been thrilled MOST to receive are the obituaries of people I have never heard of. I cannot tell you how I treasure those. I say I do not know the freshly dead person and Mother refuses to accept it -- she goes into who this person is, who they worked with at Dow Chemical and whether or not my Aunt Louise knew them. If it is a female, she might tell me if they came to her baby shower.

Oh...but if there is a smidgeon of "dirt" on them, she'll tell me that my Grandma would say "he was a little light in his loafers." or some other questionable rumor about the deceased. (Mother never tells the bad on the dead, but according to Mother, Grandma would certainly remember to mention it if she were still alive.)

Rather than argue that "I don't know the dead man, damn it." I finally, learned to just say "I hate to hear that Mr. .... died!"

Now days the Obituary Reports from Mother mean so much more to me (BECAUSE THEY INTERRUPT MY FAVORITE TV SHOWS.) Yes, this is my non-life now that my mother has a fax machine AND a friendly guy hanging around to operate it. Guess what! Now Mother faxes obits and articles of trivia to me--on a fax machine I put into her hot little hands, and to a toll free number that I pay for.

Now, that would be totally okay except for the Pre-fax call.


THE PRE-FAX CALL

The Pre-fax Call is the real motivation for all these words crawling around on this paper...blog...email...whatever you have been kind enough to continue reading to this point.

My mother only faxes items to me AFTER calling me to go over the details with me--again, no matter that I tell her I can surf right over and read them in real-time along with her.

Then, she says, "Okay, I want to fax it to you--do you have your fax machine on???"

Let me pause here to let you in on a little known secret.

Apparently, faxing makes the recipient (me) hard of hearing because my mother gets louder and louder as we try to get our nightly faxing done. Apparently it affects anyone the fax machine owner has in close proximity, as well. Yes indeedy! Her friend (Warren) can be in the same room about two feet away and Mother gets increasingly serious (aka LOUD) about being heard by both me, and by Warren.

During the Pre-fax Call I hear: "WARREN... DO YOU HAVE THE FAX MACHINE ON? DO YOU KNOW WHAT BUTTON TO PUSH? IS IT PLUGGED IN?

NO, NO, NO...THAT'S THE WRONG PLACE TO PLUG THE PHONE INTO...I think...well??? Well what??? I thought you had it plugged IN WRONG AND NOW WHAT DO WE DO...BRENDA? BRENDA? ARE YOU THERE...(miffed) WELL, I guess she hung up!"

But I have not hung up!...I am just trying to blot out that old familiar face of mocking stupidity ... I brought this on myself. I am the one who gave my mom the fax machine so I could clear out some clutter. And, I was not even drinking when I told her I have a toll free fax number. I opened my mouth and it just tumbled out like I had good sense.

Goodness...once she discovered I had a toll free fax number all control over life as I knew it was lost .

Yeah...one day I had a life and the next day it was KATY BAR THE FREAKING DOOR - MAMA'S A-FIXIN' TO FAX YOU LITTLE SISTER. AND, OFTEN.

I am sorry. Yet again, I digress from describing the Important Pre-Fax Call and getting to the end of this dark tale.

Sometimes I am being quiet on the other end because I am being grateful. Mom assumes we have been disconnected when she does not hear me butting in while she is talking ... like she and her (hard of hearing) friends do... like she and her sisters do to each other... like my grandmother and her sisters did when they were in a conversation.

During this Pre-fax interlude of Mom TALKING REALLY LOUD TO WARREN WHO IS ONLY ONE OR TWO FEET AWAY FROM HER, I am saying prayers of thanks for the little volume button on my telephone.

This even more so since I have seen Mom talking into her cell phone. I am very grateful to still be without a hearing aid.

That gal is a two-fisted cell phone talker; her technique makes all conversations with her a high decibel proposition. See...she has an ear-splitting method of delivery that assures no rebellious word can slip off to parts unknown...no word goes unheard on her watch...not while travelling through her cell phone. No Sirree!

It is a double-hand method -- she holds the phone with one hand, then she assures there is no way someone will miss her remarks by a method I have never seen before, until I saw Mom do it.

It is amazing. As if she had an identical phone back in 1959, she deftly positions her hand around her mouth AND the phone's mouthpiece the entire time she talks LOUDLY into the cell phone...see, she says it MAKES THEM ABLE TO HEAR HER BETTER.

God Bless her! No wonder she worries about me talking to her on my cell phone in the car.

But, let's get back to the nightly Fax-o-Rama...one technique, I have learned to utilize for myself at the critical Pre-fax Call stage, is that it is best to just remain silent while my mother asks questions, answers them, and directs Warren on how to fax the document to me...even though she does not know how to use the fax machine without Warren, of course.

I try to have an out of body experience ... relax my neck muscles and meditate on words like "abundance, patience, I have an abundance of patience...pink patience...baby blue clouds of patience, BUT NOT BLOODY BLACK HYPER-FREAKING-MURDEROUS RAGE-FiLLED IMPATIENCE because I am a very patient person, DAMN IT."

There is no getting a word in edgewise so I just wait and I meditate...I am just glad to still have hearing -- whew, especially now that I have witnessed my mother's perfected double-fisted cell phone technique. I realize that there is no way she'll hear me say anything until she stops talking REALLY LOUD and capturing the words in her palm and through some mysterious power in her hand, the hand acts as an uzi to DRIVE HER WORDS THE HELL INTO THE cell phone AND MY EAR ... while it is so LOUD on her end hearing herself talking that OF COURSE SHE CANNOT HEAR ME.

Well...you might wonder ... have I told her that she did not have to call me first? Yes. I did.

I used to tell her, "No, Mother. I don't even have a fax machine. It comes through the internet. You do not even have to call me first. Just send it."

Then, we always discuss how I can NOT have a fax machine and receive a fax from her. AND IT IS A LOUD DISCUSSION BECAUSE SHE'S DOING THAT HAND-UZI THING.

I know now not to argue technology with my mother. No way. From this day forward, I swear I will turn down the volume on the phone and just tell her "Wait....Okay, I just fired up the fax machine! Wait...almost time! OKAY MOM... Let her rip!!"

Thank God that she's still there to fax me, but, I have to laugh. This fax machine thing is, no doubt, one of the finest tricks I have ever played on myself.