Phone Calls

I have a phone and my grandmother has a phone.  But, my phone rings more than hers and this makes her mad.  Apparently it is a competition to see who can get more phone calls during the day.  Not only am I younger and my friends are still alive so they can call me, I am also busy doing things and often need to touch base with people about these things.  I babysit and sometimes the child's mother will call.  Or my sister confirming plans we have.  Or the boys' doctor confirming an appointment.  Or just whoever.  It doesn't matter who, it only matters that they are not calling to talk to grandma.  My phone is an internet phone and if I am on it too much during the day my grandmother will unplug the router.  She also does this if I am on the computer too much.  I have been looking around the house for my cell phone and when I ask her if she has seen it, she pulls it from her shirt pocket.  I have been on that too much and she has hidden it from me.  So, if the internet has been disconnected and the cell phone has been hidden, don't even think about calling her house phone and asking for me.  This sends her into a rage and she will sigh and fret so loudly on the phone in a labored effort to get it to me.  Then she will complain the whole time I am talking as well as some time after I hang up. 

Don't call and leave a message with her either.  She will either forget you called completely, like she did my dad the other day, or get the message totally distorted.  I was going to feed the cat of a friend of mine while she was gone out of town.  I was running late to meet her so she called and told my grandma that she was still waiting and would wait until I showed up.  When I got home grandma said that my friend had called and said not to worry about the cat, she was already on the road and had found someone else to feed him.  I, knowing my grandmother's ability to take messages, called my friend back to find her waiting at her house for me. 

The other day my sister was over and doing some work on my computer and as she was finishing up she goes to push the send button on an email she had spent quite a while completing and...nothing happens.  The computer is offline.  That's right.  She had been on there too long according to grandma so the router was unplugged. 

I have to admit, at first this was a little irritating.  Like right now she just walked in here and rolled her eyes at me after seeing me on the computer.  And I know next she will start saying how even though I am here she feels all alone because I never talk to her.  I spend all my time on the computer or phone.  I don't get upset by this anymore.  My family and friends have figured out how and when to call me and I know that if I sat and stared at her all day long she wouldn't remember it ten minutes later. 

There is no pleasing this woman who used to be pleased as punch that I called and talked to her for five minutes.  Now I live in the same house with her and I can't do anything right.  She finds a negative spin on everything and is so unhappy it is sad to watch.  But here I am, watching and trying my best to take care of her daily needs as I now know and have accepted I can not take care of her emotional needs.