You know my mother Iza, is always good for a story. You might remember the lesbian cucumber  post, for one?

Anyhow, between trips  from the Wild West to over here to our sunny shores for a family visit, she is taking 2 glorious weeks at Norfolk Island. So telephone communications have been a little more frequent of late, understandably.

When my mobile chirps and I see Iza’s name on the screen,  I look forward to hearing news from family so I answer. But all I can hear is her talking and laughing with friends. I figure she probably doesn’t realise I have answered yet, so I wait a minute.

Or so.

Still a lot of talking.

“Hello, hello!”  I repeat, several times. “hell-looo?”

Talking.

“hell-looo! HELLO!”

Talking. Laughing.

I figure she has repeated her often done trick and left her phone in her bag, unlocked. Connecting the ‘go’ button with the side of her purse or her lipstick or any one of the umptyzillion things a woman of a certain age carts around in her purse, her phone has rang me on speed dial and she has no idea I am on the end of the line*.

*Again.

As Iza is becoming hard of hearing, she often has the ’speak’ volume on her phone turned up very loud or on handsfree, so I figure if I yell loud enough and for long enough she will know I am there.  So putting on the voice projection thing (being a teacher has it’s perks) I begin. “Hello! MUM. Grandma! Pick up!”  “Hello! Grandma! GRANDMA! MUM!”

I hear talking. A cackle. Laughing. Clueless is Iza.

I delve deeper. In the biggest deepest voice I have, I yell into my phone.

“THIS IS YOUR HANDBAG CALLING. PLEASE PICK UP YOUR PHONE”.

Silence. Then I hear a woman say “Iza – your handbag appears to be talking to you”.

Shuffle shuffle bump – then a soft and quizzical “Hello?”

“Hi mum”.

“Oh – it’s you!” she says. “Hello love, how are you?”
“Umm just fine mum, ta – -”
“What can I do for you, love?” Says mum. 
“Mum, YOU rang me.” 
“No I didn’t” she says. “I’d remember that.”
“Well mum, if I had rung you, don’t you think you would have heard the phone ringing?”

“I did”, she said. “I heard you calling me from my handbag. We all did.” 

Sigh.

Iza, you are not the only one who needs a holiday…