Saturday, May 28, 2005

Poolside Interview

Americans are friendly, or something. I went down to the pool last night for a quick swim. Already in the pool were two girls, a boy, and their father. Then their mother arrived poolside. And one of the girls swam near me and said, "hi." And my first reaction was, "what's wrong with you? Don't you know that people don't talk to each other, unless they're drunk?"

Then I heard, "are you here for the weekend?" from the mother.

"Who, me??" I asked. Maybe she's drunk. Or maybe she was asking her 11-year-old son.

Twenty minutes later, this is what I had learned:
Patrick is 2 years and three months older than the twins, Kelly and Krysta, so she had three kids in diapers, and her husband works night shifts, and they're in Palm Springs for the long weekend with two other families, but they got here first, and she wakes up at six every morning, and the kids go to bed at 9pm, and from then until midnight is the only time she has to herself. And then she demonstrated how she was able to bottle feed the twins at the same time when they were newborns.

Was I annoyed that my swim was interrupted? Was she drunk? Is she crazy? Does she like people, and does she like to talk? No, no, no, yes and yes.

Then her cell phone rang and she started speaking in Spanish, and actually interrupted the phone call to explain to me that her mother's dog Bailey had run away, but her mother found the dog on Montgomery Avenue, and was so relieved that she couldn't be mad at the dog any more. Turns out her mother is Mexican, but her father is of German descent, so she burns easily, but the twins, who are 8, turn a beautiful golden brown. Fraternal twins. In fact, they're special twins: Krysta was born at 10:00 pm on August 2nd and Kelly was born at 2:00 am on August 3rd. And Patrick just turned 11 on May 21st. "Happy Birthday." "Thank you."

"Have a good night. See you around. Nice to meet you. Bye."

And then I realised she never introduced herself. Whatever.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A-L......you crack me up!!!!!

 
http://www.blogger.com/config-amazon.g?blogID=8328385