I can always count on my parents for material.

After six years in New York, through career changes and moves and marriage, there’s still one thing that remains constant: Semi-weekly phone calls with my parents. Every Wednesday and Sunday, every week, ever since I graduated from college in 2003. I deviate from this schedule so rarely that when something comes up and I forget to call, I frequently wake up the next morning to a series of increasingly-panicked voicemails from my mother. They begin unconcerned--

“Hi honey, it’s mom! Just wanted to give you a call! You usually get in touch by now!”

-- become incrementally more concerned --

“Hi honey, it’s mom! Just… wondering where you are! Call us!”

-- and finally descend into all-out mayhem.

“Honey, it’s your MOTHER. I don’t know what is going on, but I am getting very worried. (long pause) VERY. WORRIED. (long pause punctuated by maternal sighs so guilt-inducing that I am mentally calculating how long it would take me to just drive home) Well… bye.”

For obvious reasons, I try very hard not to deviate from the schedule. And needless to say, my parents have come to expect my calls – I usually catch them either preparing dinner (Wednesdays) or doing the post-breakfast crossword puzzle (Sundays) – and they generally answer the phone with the cheerful tone of people who are expecting to hear from their child.

So I was surprised, on Sunday, when I called the house and was met on the first ring with a wary, uncomfortable, “Hello?”

“Uh… hello?” I said, feeling suddenly nervous. “Mom?”

“Ah!” my mother’s voice came back, exponentially sunnier and totally free of dread. “Hi, honey!”

“Hi mom,” I said. “So, uh… what’s going on?”

“Oh, you mean, why did I answer the phone like that? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! It’s nothing! I just thought it might be your father.” She paused. “He’s in the bathroom.”

“Oh,” I said.

“We were working on the crossword puzzle,” she explained, “but then he had to go to the bathroom, and right before he went in he suggested that he could call me from the toilet so that we could keep working on it. You know, by phone. So I thought maybe this would be him, asking for the next clue.” Another pause. “God, that’s gross, isn’t it? I’m so glad it was you instead!”



Well. After twenty-four hours, I’m certainly willing to agree that yes, that might be a little bit gross.

However, after revisiting this conversation, I’m less focused on the potential grossness… and more focused on what it says about me and my upbringing that, after hearing that my father might be telephoning from the bathroom, it did not actually occur to me to ask why.