Don't be so glib when you talk about Dad leaving...

I can't remember if I've mentioned it before, but my Dad recently had a pacemaker installed into his chest. Inserted. Stitched. Placed. Installed seems like a good term for it considering he was sent home with a suitcase that you place a phone in, which checks the settings and reprograms it every now and then.

He had it installed because his heart rate was fluctuating too much due to his lung problems, but that's another story and I don't feel like divulging too much about my Dad's health. Bottom line is, though, he's much better now.

My brother, Bill, was on the phone with my Mom recently.

The topic turned to Mom coming up to visit them sometime. She wanted to come and mainly visit Tess, Bill's daughter.

She said, "Well, when your Dad is gone, I'll have a lot more time to come up and babysit Tess."

Bill was taken aback. He was a little stunned at how cold and callous my Mom sounded then on the phone. How could she be so glib about the impending death of our Dad, her husband?

Bill reacted, "What do you mean when Dad's gone? The only person that I know who's going to be gone soon is (someone's) Dad?"

(Someone being Audrey's Dad, who recently passed away. Best wishes to the family by the way)

My Mom said, "No. You're father is going to be gone for 6 weeks in Idaho! I'm driving him up there at the end of July and he's going to look after Taylor while Paul's away at NCO School."

You got to be careful what you say in this family now a days, especially Bill!. He might misinterpret a word to have another meaning. I could say that, "Laura is going to come out." Now Bill might interpret that as Laura is going to come out of the closet and announce her love for women, thereby ending my marriage. However, I think he might have missed the real meaning, which would mean that she's coming out somewhere to visit, for example.

I could say, "I love Bauls!", which is the highly-stimulated energy drink. Bill might interpret that to mean that I love... other balls.

Maybe I could say, "That's too bad. I'll be sure to tape it for you." when I hear from Bill that he can't make my grandma's funeral because he was already going to visit a sick relative in California. Bill would then react with "WHAT THE F^&* DID YOU SAY?" because instead of hearing me say "I'll be sure to tape it for you", he'll hear "Oh, can't even make it to grandma's funeral."

Not that I'm off the hook. One Christmas, my Mom called me to ask how my Christmas with Laura's parents was going. I made the mistake of saying that it was going great and that I had received so many great gifts. I then proceeded to list every great gift. My mother then interpreted it as, "Well, your gifts were crappy, but these gifts are great!" My Mom hung up the phone and cried because she felt horrible that I was having a better Christmas at the in-laws.

The next year, I learned my lesson. She asked me how my Christmas with the in-laws was going and I replied, "Good." and left it at that.

I misinterpret things, too. Two weeks ago, my wife was doing Bills and she asked, "Can you transfer $100 out of savings to checking?"

A week later, we're talking about balancing the checkbook and she asks, "Did you transfer that $100 that I asked you to transfer?"

I said, "No."

She said, "What do you mean? I asked you to transfer it?"

"No, you didn't!" I insisted."But I can right now!" I logged into Internet banking and transferred the money.

She grumbled, "I told you to transfer the money!"

I thought about it for a while and realized what the problem was.

"Laura, when you asked me if I could transfer the money, I thought you were just asking it in general, like if it was possible. So when you asked, 'Can you transfer...', I thought you were just asking if we had $100 to transfer."

She looked at me incredulously.

"At the time, I was thinking, 'Yes, I can transfer that money.' You should have asked, 'Will you transfer $100?'"

She didn't think that was a good explanation.

So be careful, how you say something to me and my family