Friday, March 23, 2012

E-mail exchanges: where hearing is less an issue (but everything is still confusing)

I sent Dad a link to the first post with the subject line "Here you go, Hadji."

His reply:
I hope you are having fun - making fun of me to the whole planet

I love you : )


Dad is mistaken that I am making fun of him. I'm pretty sure he knows that he brings some of this on himself with his smart-alecky interpretations of what I am saying. I think trying to be funny about it, on both sides, is because both of us can get frustrated at times--he wants to hear me; I have mushmouth (apparently, though...you know, I was in forensics in high school, and I feel like I speak pretty clearly. Maybe a little fast sometimes. But my volume now ranges from pretty normal to loud, thanks in large part to the many, many loud and/or hard-of-hearing people I spend my time with; let me make this clear: I am not a loud person by nature, nor am I Naughty By Nature).

Which is my way of saying: oh, you'll know when I'm making fun of you to the whole planet...

My reply:
Look, if you are not going to start writing "Get Over Here Where The Work Is," [Ed. note: Dad's long-threatened memoir about his farm childhood] someone in this family has to record our history.

Also: yes, I am having a lot of fun making fun of you to the whole planet.

I love you too.

That's when things began to devolve...

His reply:
So, you won't share a post with me - Hmp!

Just for that you can't use my posts either - wood or metal!


Me (after holding back and not replying "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?"):
What do you mean I won't share the post? I just sent you the link!

Him:
I tried to look at the rest of your blob but it said you had not shared your posts with me so you can't look at my fences either : P

First of all: "blob" is new. Usually his preferred terminology for a blog is "booger."

Second: it will never not be startling and odd when my dad uses that emoticon. Who taught him that?

I sent my brothers an e-mail ("Would one of you two ding-dongs please see what Dad is talking about next time he visits?"), to which neither had a reply--their excuse will be that they are wrangling their eleven children or working or, in Andy's case, watching "Man on a Buffalo" for the 30th time--and then replied:
I didn't think I had any privacy bells or whistles on my booger. I'll check. It's just the first post, so there wasn't anything beyond your Hadji fillets.

Dad:
If you have a blob of boogers you need more than a post to keep them in

And that's where I officially gave up, because I may be making fun of him, but he's (probably) always going to be the one to get off the last, best line.

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