speed dial

I forgot one aspect that kept us laughing through the utterly traumatic experience of losing mum. For about thirty years some man, a co-worker of hers from way back in the 70s, rang her every day. As far as we know, there was nothing untoward going on; mum was this poor guy's only outlet, we presume. The little we know about him is that he's wheelchair-bound, a prisoner in his apartment. So why do we dislike him? If anyone but mum answered the phone, he'd slam it down. No 'Could I speak to your mum, please?', no 'Sorry, I got the wrong number'. Just a click and he'd be gone.

See our problem here? The phone calls continued when mum had already passed away while we were cleaning the apartment. We very much wanted to inform him of the circumstances so he could stop his daily calls, but how? By answering with 'Mum's dead!'? Or 'Mrs X's estate'? The risk of shocking someone else was just too great.

We got a breakthrough a few days after the funeral. I was carrying mum's mobile phone when it rang; someone saved as 'Mr' was calling. I answered; click, he was gone. Finally we had a contact number - mum had saved it after all (we hadn't found it in her many, many address books).

Despite our dislike for him, we wrote a civil text message informing him of the circumstances, and sent it just before my flight back home. My sister later emailed to tell he replied with four empty texts, just before mum's mobile was disconnected. We also disconnected the landline.

I guess he has to find someone else to hang up on now. We're done.

Oh, and for my dear American friends, here is a darling little website with Barracuda recipes. I suspect they'll come in handy from, oh, about tomorrow.