Playing Telephone with Old People is Dangerous

I admit it, I'm old.  Once I got my first Senior Discount, I knew it was all downhill from there....and I wasn't even 40 then!  A lot of things change when you get older....especially your bodily functions.

And by bodily function I mean your hearing and sight.  When I got my new contacts last year, my Optometrist asked if I wanted them to see close or far away better....for some silly reason I said "Far away, of course" and I've been regretting it ever since when I have to hold EVERYTHING at arm's length to read it!  When I'm wearing my glasses I can just take them off and I'm good, but not so much with contacts, I need longer arms.

Earlier this summer I took my husband home to Pennsylvania to meet my parents and to see where I grew up.  While we were there we had a wonderful time and he got to meet a lot of my old friends, so many friends, so many good and wonderful people.  People that have in the last 20 years been scattered all across the country, me in Chicago, others to Seattle and yet others who weren't there at the time are now a part of our big clan.

We went out to lunch one afternoon.  You need to picture this, 8 women all at least 60 years old and all the way up to 80+, my father, myself, and my husband - a motley crew for sure!  But what fun and laughter we had that day.  We're sitting in a private room with two big tables pushed together and us all gathered around when my mother (at one end of the table) says "Let's play a game....let's play telephone like we did when we were kids."  Heck we all said YEAH cuz inside we're all still kids.  So my mother starts it off.

As she whispers in the first person ear the receiver says "You know, it's not a good thing to start off with the deaf one."  She was also the one that said "Friendship Sandwich" when the waitress said that the special that day was a French Dip Sandwich.   To which got us all giggling and laughing because we had no idea what she heard.  The game was on.....it was passed to the next person, who thought about for a second and shared it with the next and so on and so on until it got to my father (who was at the other end of the table) who chuckled and whispered in my ear "Chicken's have lips"

Chicken's have lips?  What the hell?  Ok, so I passed it on to my husband who had no idea what it meant and sent it on it's way. It worked it's way to the end of the table, right back next to my mother.  We were all excited to hear what came out and we waited with anticipation as the final receiver gathered her thoughts.

"What did you hear?  What did you hear?"  We wanted to know, and she blurted out "Something about Mexican Half-Wits?  What the heck does that mean?"  Oh my goodness, did we laugh at that!  "Mexican Half Wits" we all repeated, each adding their own flair to it.  So what did you say to start with, we all wanted to know.

My Mother smiled and said "What a Great Day Today Is" and we all wondered, how in the heck did that end up being Mexican Half-Wits?  We didn't have to think long or hard because we knew who the culprit was....my Father!

I should have known something was up when he passed the phrase to me without a stutter.  Still how that ended becoming Mexican Half-Wits is still something we're all trying to figure out.....and still laughing about!