I very often get strange phone calls at strange times asking me strange questions. Not that they are really strange, but that they are of no particular importance except to the person making the query, who generally needs the answer immediately, often because not getting that answer will either lose them money or their mind.
An example:
“Becky, what was the name of Normy’s wife on Cheers?”
“Vera.”
“Oh, my word! That’s it! Dude, I owe you! Thanks so much!”
“My pleasure. Give me a call sometime when its not 3:24 AM.”
It’s not that I’m some kind of genius. It’s just that I have a head for absolutely useless trivia. Really important things like picking up the children after school, making the bank deposit or adding detergent to the load of clothes in the washer seem to get lost in there somewhere. I have the best of intentions, but sometimes fail miserably. But ask me that guitarist and singer was from Pink Floyd in the late 80′s and early 90′s and I can tell you David Gilmour (mainly because sometimes when its dark and I’m all alone in my bed, I think about what it must be like to be his guitar and I can’t believe I just disclosed this to people I don’t even know) or who composed the Peer Gynt Suites (Grieg, and I don’t just stop there; I have to drone on with even more useless trivia like the fact that it was based on the play of the same name by Ibsen, and man, if you want to read a really raucous play about a man with an appalling lack of scruples that gets what’s coming to him in the end, this would be the one to read) or what the theme song from Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Moon River), I’m your gal!
A former husband called me one night from the fast food restaurant (can you really call a fast food place a restaurant?) where he was a manager and told me how out of it he felt because he didn’t know who the Ramones were and did I know. In his defense, if they didn’t sing We’ve Only Just Begun, he didn’t know them. I rattled off some of their music and he was in awe. Well, not really in awe. More like “in ponder” of the person he hooked up with and what else didn’t he know about me.
My adult children are the most notorious for calling at all hours to ask me a real stumper. I sometimes wonder if it is to impress the friends they are with, to win a bet, or to trip me up. It hasn’t happened yet, but with the onslaught of middle age and its inevitable memory loss, I wouldn’t discount anything. But with the onslaught of middle age and its inevitable memory loss, I wouldn’t . . . wait a minute . . . didn’t I just write that?
An example:
“Becky, what was the name of Normy’s wife on Cheers?”
“Vera.”
“Oh, my word! That’s it! Dude, I owe you! Thanks so much!”
“My pleasure. Give me a call sometime when its not 3:24 AM.”
It’s not that I’m some kind of genius. It’s just that I have a head for absolutely useless trivia. Really important things like picking up the children after school, making the bank deposit or adding detergent to the load of clothes in the washer seem to get lost in there somewhere. I have the best of intentions, but sometimes fail miserably. But ask me that guitarist and singer was from Pink Floyd in the late 80′s and early 90′s and I can tell you David Gilmour (mainly because sometimes when its dark and I’m all alone in my bed, I think about what it must be like to be his guitar and I can’t believe I just disclosed this to people I don’t even know) or who composed the Peer Gynt Suites (Grieg, and I don’t just stop there; I have to drone on with even more useless trivia like the fact that it was based on the play of the same name by Ibsen, and man, if you want to read a really raucous play about a man with an appalling lack of scruples that gets what’s coming to him in the end, this would be the one to read) or what the theme song from Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Moon River), I’m your gal!
A former husband called me one night from the fast food restaurant (can you really call a fast food place a restaurant?) where he was a manager and told me how out of it he felt because he didn’t know who the Ramones were and did I know. In his defense, if they didn’t sing We’ve Only Just Begun, he didn’t know them. I rattled off some of their music and he was in awe. Well, not really in awe. More like “in ponder” of the person he hooked up with and what else didn’t he know about me.
My adult children are the most notorious for calling at all hours to ask me a real stumper. I sometimes wonder if it is to impress the friends they are with, to win a bet, or to trip me up. It hasn’t happened yet, but with the onslaught of middle age and its inevitable memory loss, I wouldn’t discount anything. But with the onslaught of middle age and its inevitable memory loss, I wouldn’t . . . wait a minute . . . didn’t I just write that?