I'm blowing off steam when I write this partly because, yet again, my Grandmother has bad timing, from my point of view. This time I was settling down to see the monologue for Jimmy Kimmel Live -- which I think is better than even David Letterman's at times -- when she knocks on my door. And she doesn't really knock on my door; either to her loss of power due to age or the possibility she doesn't want to disturb me if I'm asleep, she kind of lightly taps at my door, even paws at it like a cat would. If I weren't paying attention, there's a good chance I wouldn't hear it.
But I heard it -- I always do -- and after saying, "Dang it!" aloud I open the door. She wants my help in calling long-distance again. OK. She has relatives and friends in Hong Kong, Vietnam and Australia, and she sometimes wants to call them when it's morning over there, which means midnight or so here. The only thing I can take from her occasionally asking me to help her call overseas is that I know what goes into a long-distance number. I forgot the last time I went overseas (which was a "class" after I graduated from college to Europe) that I had to hit "011" to essentially "leap out" of the U.S. and hit the country code to basically "leap in" to the country I'm calling to, then any city code to pinpoint where specifically I want to call, then the actual number.
Anyway, the big problem I have with this isn't the really long-ass number, but my granny's reaction to whenever I get a voicemail message or answering machine, which is most of the time. I shove the phone in her face because this message is in the native tongue, one which she speaks but I don't. She then says she doesn't understand or, more recently, the voice is speaking too quickly. My grandmother then gives it back to me so I could listen, even though I can't fucking speak the language. Plus, I don't know how to say "voicemail message" or "answering machine" in Chinese. So I hang up and call again only to show her that I'm making a good faith effort to call. When I get the same shit again, I have to try and explain to her what's actually going on, but she doesn't seem to understand, and that's when I get upset, because we go through this routine of misunderstanding and miscommunication every single goddamn time we do this.
Eventually she gives up says we'll try again tomorrow. But this leads to the other problem I have with her when helping her call long-distance: She buys new phone cards every single time. Whenever she can't get through to someone, she gets around to thinking it's the cards that don't work. I keep telling it's not the cards, but she probably has at least a dozen now. I use a new one just to humor her, and I want to think that not being able to get her friend or relative on the phone convinces her it's not the phone card, but she still keeps buying new phone cards.
This is one of those times I wish we were white.
Oh yeah, something else aggravating happened to me when my granny asked for my help. This card was new, so the PIN#/code thingy wasn't scratched off yet. I went to take the card out of her hand and grab a coin, but I didn't know that she was holding a knife behind her new phone card. I jumped back and almost gasped. She grabbed the knife from the kitchen because she knew the gray stuff had to be scratched off, but I damn well almost fuckin' cut up my fingers because of her. And if she knew it had to be scratched off, why did she get a knife? Doesn't she know a fucking penny would do?
I know she's old, but goddammit, sometimes I just don't get my grandmother.
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