These are the types of phone calls I get at work and why my co-workers, past and present, think my family is so entertaining.
Phone Rings...
Me: Law Offices of JD Haas, this is Rebecca.
Jadyn: Mom, do boys & girls both have bladders? (Note: No hello or pleasantries of any sort.)
Me: Um, yes. Why did you call me at work to ask this?
Janessa yelling in the background at the same time: Let me talk to mommy!!
Jadyn: Lots of evil-older-brother laughter as he hands her the phone.
Janessa: Mommy, do boys & girls both have bladders?!?! Because Jadyn says they do, but I don't think so!
Me: Oh, Janessa. I wish I could give this one to you, but Jadyn is right. Boys and girls do both have bladders.
Jadyn: More hysterical laughter & shouting from the background: See, I told you so!
Janessa: Loud harrumphing about being wrong.
Me: Anything else about bladders that I can help you two with or can I go back to work now?
My coworkers: Raucous laughter.
Situations like this are actually why I love being a working mother. Nobody else in my workplace can boast of phone calls such as these. I mean, who else gets to referee such battles about which genders have bladders? And, I'd like to point out, this is actually good for my lawyering skills. But, it's also why I'm really grateful for bosses who don't care if I get phone calls like that, and it's why I'm really grateful for telecommuting -- so most of these conversations (which happen on a daily basis) can stay in the confines of my home office.
I also appreciate my parents perspective more now, too. I used to do the same thing being that I stayed home alone during summers. Quite often, I would call them - at work - just to check in and make sure everyone was still where they were supposed to be. This, of course, was before cell phones and the Internet. To be perfectly honest, though, I still check in with my parents on a daily basis when we're both at work, but e-mail has made my daily communications much more surreptitious.
One last phone call memory that my former OPP co-workers might cherish. When I was working at the newspaper, there was even less phone privacy than my current office provides. Granted, cubicles aren't bastions of privacy anyway. But, one of the last summers I worked at the newspaper, I got a phone call that went something like this:
Phone rings...
Me: Newsroom, this is Becky.
Jadyn: Mom, I need to have a yard sale. Please!
Me: A yard sale? Really, Jadyn?
My coworkers: Muffled chortling already.
Jadyn: Yes! I can get all my stuff ready to go, but I want to have a yard sale right now!
Me: Absolutely not. You cannot have a yard sale. Nobody's even home! I'm not there. Dad's not there.
Jadyn: I could do it!
Me: No, Jadyn. No yard sales, at least not until I get home.
Jadyn: Fine.
My coworkers: Boisterous laughter as I hang up.
This is a story that still comes up with my OPP friends and I love it. Some days work can be fairly monotonous and other days it can be really intense. No matter what, though, I know my kids will always pull through and provide some special phone entertainment to brighten everyone's day.
