JumpStart by Robb Armstrong for December 17, 2023

Wawa has pizza?

Brilliantly observed. The funny stuff people do, no?

A couple of weeks ago it was Dana who was turning into her mom, now it’s Marcy’s turn!

I’m turning into my father and I’m not happy about it. Why can’t I turn into Harrison Ford, instead?

A whole lot of marriage is listening to the same stories repeatedly.

I guess the Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

My parents had 18 stories. Got to the point where my siblings and I used to number them. We wish they were around now to tell them to us.

Just smile and nod.

“When Daddy died, it took all the insurance money to bring him home and bury him.”

I really cannot count the number of hundreds of times I’ve heard this tale. I never remind my mother-in-law that I’ve heard it before because she likes to tell it and she won’t remember that she’s told it already anyway. There’s no reason to hurt her feelings, so it’s a small thing to do.

I was telling a friend of my children some tale or other which I found amusing. He said, “John, your daddy sure does know a lot of stories. Does he ever repeat himself?”

Both my sons vigorously nodded their heads. “Yes ,he does.”

Let’s compromise, I don’t listen to you and you don’t listen to me. You can say that again.

Ain’t it the truth. Or today I already mentioned that?

Not turning into your parents is one of the biggest challenges any of us face.

.

…did I say that already?

The late SF writer Brian Aldiss wrote a short story called “Appearance of Life”, in which, in the very far future, two memory cubes of a married couple were found in a titanic museum, and when placed together, began chatting with each other, yet saying nothing that was not previously recorded sixty-five thousand years in the past.

C’mon Marcy. Your mom is a great woman!

I have a line that follows the punchline… "Laugh, or I’ll tell it again ".

Even worse than one of you telling the same story over and over (lets face it – we started dating 50 years ago last November and knew each other 2 years before that – we know each other for 70% of our lives – not really any surprises left) is when the version each remembers is not the same as what the other remembers.

Last year I found out by husband making an offhand comment in response to a comment I had made about my mother/sister, that I have a forgotten memory about some medical procedure I had in the late 1980s. Husband, my sister and BIL all remember “some medical procedure” which was “nothing”. This is driving me crazy and makes me forget all sorts of things I would never have forgotten before – and the one thing I have been known for is my memory.

(And no, there is no way to find out as I have no idea of who the doctor was. There is a minor possibility that an appointment book for that year – and not sure which year specifically – may in our attic as we used to keep our prior years records up there – but going up to look involves removing the entire contents of our office closet plus its shelf, and putting a small ladder into the closet. I would then have to climb up and move a board in the opening at the top of the closet, hope I still fit through the hole and then slide on my stomach to where the records are and bring them back downstairs – and we have had mice in the interim so I might be sliding on my stomach through old mouse droppings and certainly through dust.

And, no, I have no idea of who my doctor was back then.