Texting the Aliens That Kidnapped Denise

Alright you crazy kids, I am back and ready to lick the world, which is probably how I got sick in the first place. I didn't expect to be back quite yet, but I'm feeling better today. I will spare you the details of why I wasn't feeling so swell because it's a bit icky, and I take pride in not gicking everyone out.

I want to address two things before I get into this post. One is that you are all probably wondering why I posted a Greta Hayley Says post instead of just proofing a post I already had finished. That's easy; Greta Hayley Says posts are short and take a quarter of the time to post than it does for me to proofread my super long posts. And two, Vivi, I did not forget about you. I promise I am going to do a blog about how awesome you are. I want to do it when I'm fully aware and able to truly tell you how I feel about your awesomeness and not half ass it. I promise it is coming.

About a year ago I wrote two blogs, both about cute, fun stories and life experiences that were random and I had accumulated over the years. I thought I posted what I had written, but their word files were in my to be posted folder, and I went through my blog and couldn't find where I had posted them anywhere. Therefore, you shall be graced or mortified by them now; whichever you choose. When reading, please keep in mind that I wrote these a year ago. They will make more sense.

And seriously, who takes a year to post something? Gees!

I want to tell you a story about about my favorite person, Aunt Bev, and her accomplice, my Mom. I really think if you’ve ever, for whatever reason, missed any of my Aunt Bev and Mom stories, this should catch you all up when it comes to understanding exactly what I am dealing with when it comes to the two of them, or even one of them, for that matter.

My mom is absolutely and completely technology inept. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned that, but what makes it especially funny is that she is a trained technician and worked for Verizon repairing internal phone lines for several years. She’s not stupid by any means, but she is often befuddled totally by today’s advances in technology.

She can use the computer, but if anything out of the ordinary pops up, such as a download suggestion, or the computer freezes, etc, she has no idea what to do. She doesn’t have enough common knowledge of the programs on the computers to make a judgment call, so I’m always close by when she needs to use the computer.

With this is mind, do you want to guess what she just got....

A cell phone. (Like I said, I wrote this a year ago. She now has a whole new cell phone which she has an equal amount of trouble working.)

I think the only thing she’s worse with than a computer would have to be a cell phone. The small buttons, the programs, and the whole thing in general just befuddles the heck out of her. She doesn’t now enough about cell phones to make a judgment call or educated guess as to how to work one, but she tries. I find this funny considering she worked at Verizon for so many years, but I’m assured that working inside on home phones is much different than dealing with a cell phone.

I should back up and say that I’m really grateful she has a cell phone, as there’s been several times I’ve wanted to get a hold of her while she was gone, being that I was sick, or just something urgent in general, and had not been able to. Aunt Bev ever so graciously invested in this cell phone for my mom, and we both really appreciate her for that, among many other things. Essentially, my mom having a cell phone is a good thing. Her using it; not so much.

The only thing worse than her using it; her setting it up.

Let me clarify something. In this household, when it comes to technology I am the Abby Sciuto, and she is the Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs of it. No exaggeration. Also, if you didn’t get that reference, please refer to the television show NCIS.

May I also point out that just because I’m the Abby, does not mean I know right off hand without ever having to look at it, exactly how each different cell phone works. Many people like to think I do, but I do not. Every piece of technology is different. If you have the basic know how of one cell phone, though, you can usually figure out another one without too much effort, but you must see it first.

On a side note, and not that this is important to anyone except for me, at all, I’ve decided to be Abby for Halloween because I think it’s really fitting. (I didn't get to go anywhere last Halloween, so I am planning on doing it this year if the occasion so occurs.) I also almost typed Christmas instead of Halloween, which could have gotten really hinky, let me tell you. (For reference of the word hinky, please also look to NCIS. It’s an Abby word. Promise I’m not making things up, here.)

Anyway, back to the phone. Aunt Bev got my mom the coolest, most cost effective phone she could find. This being said, I thought the two of them had it all figured out. I don’t know why, but I did, so I sat as happily as I could for as terrible as I felt, as I had just gotten out of the ER hours earlier, and played around on my computer while they messed with the phone.

They had no idea what they were doing and somehow I was totally and utterly surprised by this. When things such as this happen, you can tell I’ve really been knocked down a pretty good one and am really having a tough time. In fact, I wasn’t even going to document this into the blog, as epic as it is, until Aunt Bev said “this is going on the blog.” Normally, as soon as I saw a cell phone and my mom and Aunt Bev were involved, I would have started taking immediate notes. Rest assured, though, that after Aunt Bev pointed out that this was going in the blog, I did take notes, so you all will not miss out on the sacred insanity that took place just days ago.

So as I was saying before, I am the Abby and my mom is the Gibbs. This is very important to remember through out this whole story. Before the phone was even turned on, plugged in, etc, my mom quickly became the Dinozzo of the bunch. Ah, yes, another NCIS reference for those of you who aren’t familiar. You’re really getting a work out today.

Long story short, Abby is the forensics chick, Gibbs is the leader of the NCIS team, and Dinozzo is the immature, slightly off, overly excitable, unexpectedly good at his job, playboy of the team. I’m not saying my mom was being a playboy, but I am saying that she was being immature, slightly off, and way too excitable.

What was she excited about, you ask?

Prepare yourselves.

Covering the screen of the phone was a sticky, thin plastic protector. This is standard on all phones, and not at all the exciting part. The exciting part is is the double protector that went over the initial protector and emulated how the screen would look when the phone was turned on and operational.

A sticky protector on top of a sticky protector just blew my mom's mind. She spent several minutes gleefully playing with the protectors and pointed out several times how neat and exciting it was to have two “sticky things” on her phone.

She needs to get out of the house more.

Aunt Bev was so excited that my mom was having fun with all the excitement over the double stickies, because who wouldn’t, that she, too, decide that she was having fun. This caused the conversation on how Aunt Bev never has this much fun with her husband. To which my mom replied that she has never had fun with a man.

I wanted to go there so badly, you don’t even know, but in the state of physical being I was in, I kept my mouth shut. The more I think about it, the better I think that was. Also, the more I think about it, the more I think that my mom isn’t the only one who needs out of the house.

While this little conversation commenced, Aunt Bev was finishing plugging in the phone so that we could charge it and get it set up for use. The two of them took to reading the instructions six ways to Sunday and came upon the conclusion that you either had to call to activate the phone, as well as the calling card, or you could sign up online.

Guess who got nominated for this task because she was the only one who could figure out how to do either?

And guess which route I went, being the Abby and all.

I carefully, methodically, and exhaustively went through the process of getting the phone in order online so that it would be ready for use. I then asked Aunt Bev and my mom to do one thing since they were near the phone and I was not. I should not have asked them. I should have gotten up, but I was too tired, and the result was, no doubt, funny.

I asked them to turn the phone off and then turn it back on again to activate it. The response I got was that Aunt Bev had already done that earlier. It took me a few times of explaining why you had to do it now, after I activated it, as opposed to before it had been activated, for it to sink in, but eventually they got that turning it off would activate the physical phone and not just the account online, like I had just done.

Once the phone was finally up and running, the question of if my mom would really get double minutes or not got answered, it was time for the two of them to play around with it. Let’s just say that they got stuck in the camera app and couldn’t get back out, taking pictures of random things until I came and ended the insanity.

Ah, crazy days.

Needless to say, by the end of it all, I was amused. But really, would I expect anything else from the team of Aunt Bev and my Mom?

No, I would not.

Another story I’d like to share has to do with Becky and some random person who kept texting me, obviously thinking I was someone else. This took place right in the middle of the Wal-Mart shoe section, and I will never forget it for as long as I live.

On this particular day, someone whose phone number I did not recognize kept texting me and referring to me as someone else. I can’t remember the exact name they were using, but let’s go with Denise. Denise sounds like a nice, solid name, although I know it was nothing even remotely close to that. Let’s just work with me here, okay?

I had texted this person they first time they had incorrectly texted me to assure them that I was not the person they were looking for. I thought I was being nice, but apparently this person was reading impaired, because the texts continued all day. Irony.

Eventually I texted them again and asked them to please stop texting me because my name was not Denise, and I was not the person they were looking for. This still did not stop them and the texting continued. Thank goodness I have unlimited texting, or I would have been finding them and pretending to beat them up in my mind, because I don’t promote real life violence.

The day drug on and Becky and I headed to Wal-Mart to try to find her shoes for a wedding she was going to be in. As expected, my phone continued to go off from text messages and annoy the absolute crap out of me, especially when I only had the volume on because I was awaiting an important text from someone else.

After several times of this happening, Becky asked me what was going on and why I wasn’t texting the person back. I explained it to her, to which her response became taking my phone and texting the person back in a way that I could not even have done if I tried. The text said something like this, but it wasn’t the exact wording.

“Dear human life form of whom is looking for Denise. She has been abducted, and we the aliens have confiscated her phone. We no longer know of a Denise, as her life form seizes to exist. You are next.”

I know that the text was nothing like that, but the gist of it is still the same. We stood in the middle of Wal-Mart, laughing hysterically and choking for air like absolute morons, while everyone else pretended not to notice us. Oh, they noticed us.

So, what ever happened to the random person sending the texts, you ask?

About ten minutes later I received another text from them stating, “Gees, I had the wrong number! Sorry!”

I would have felt bad for harassing the person in such a manner, except I had been telling them they had the wrong person all day, and yet they continued to send me increasingly angry texts, because I apparently was Denise, and Denise was not answering the questions they were texting her.

So to the person out there who sent me all those texts, if you do ever come across this blog, and you will certainly know it’s you unless you get lots of random texts like the one my friend Becky sent you from my phone, I really hope you eat dirt. And maybe go back to school, because it might be able to help you understand when someone tells you that they are NOT the person you were texting over and over again.

What’s even more sad is that it took Becky sending them that text for them to understand they had the wrong person. However, me simply telling them that they did, just did not compute. Really? Just...really?

And I really want to thank Becky for always being, and continuing to be the kind of entertainment that I could never find anywhere else, not even if I paid for it. I realize how wrong this could sound, but get your damn minds out of the gutter, people! Gees!

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned my acute fear of birds, but I just have a few words as to why I have said fear.

When I was little, very little, I was chased by a set of chickens and a very crazed rooster. Back in the day when I had to go with my dad on weekends, he lived on a farm. On this farm there was a rooster. (Ei ei oh!) This rooster didn’t like anyone. I don’t even know if he liked himself. If you went outside, this rooster knew, no matter where you were on the farm and he would promptly start chasing you and pecking at you.

This began my fear of large birds, but I was still able to deal with the small ones that flew. That was until I was eleven and we moved into the current house that I’m in now. When we moved in we were unaware that the part at the top of the fireplace that is used to keep birds from getting in to our little wood burning stove, was broken and birds could indeed get in.

We learned this lesson extremely quickly and in a very painful way.

One day I came home to two very angry blackbirds in our house. They had obviously gotten into the wood burning stove while we were gone, and the dog noticed, got upset, and broke the glass on the doors of the stove, allowing them to fly freely.

They were swooping and trying to attack us like we were invading their territory. They were not easy to get out, and this happened time and time again. We also used to have those funnel lamps and one even got stuck in there, and since we had it on as it was nighttime and we were out of the house for awhile, he also died and burnt in there, which smelled up the house for several days.

It took us awhile to finally get the fireplace properly repaired, as we repaired it once and then the birds, being as they were used to getting in our house, got angry and broke the piece of the pipe all over again. We have yet to replace the glass, but we figured it didn’t matter much at the time, as the dog would just keep going through it. But long story short, this is why I am terrified of birds, and pretty much anything else that flies, big or small. I don’t discriminate.