Talking to you is like talking to you

I love my parents. They are great people. However, like parents do, sometimes they do tend to make me want to reach through the phone and flick a nose or a forehead.

One of my most recent conversations with my dad is a perfect example. As some background, we are all in a football pool, and my mom is in charge of collecting everyone’s picks and emailing them out, usually on Saturday. I was out of town for the weekend, but could check my email, and I never received the picks. I got home on Sunday night, and still no picks. So I called my parents and my dad answered. After the usual pleasantries, it all went downhill.

Is Jan going to send the picks? It's 8 at night. 95% of the games are over and I have no picks.
Yeah, you're getting too good, so we're not sending them to you anymore. (I'm in second-to-last place, so.... )
Nice. No, really, I just checked and I have no picks.
Oh, she sent them this morning.
OK, well, I didn't get them.
Well she sent them. Did you check?
Yes, I checked yesterday, this morning and just now. I have no picks.
Well she sent them (What time did you send them?)... She sent them at 10.
I don't have them.
She sent them this morning. Did you check?
Really?!?! This is the conversation we're having???

It's like talking to a wall sometimes. I laughed about it with my sister, and my friend Chris, who said he had a similar conversation with his dad. Our moms, sharp as tacks. Our dads... well, bless their hearts.

I talked to my mom last night. She told me that my dad has to go into the hospital on Sunday in another town to get new heart medication. He has an arterial fibrillation, and this new medication has the chance of actually stopping his heart, so he has to stay in the hospital for a few days for observation. I called him today. Just to chat. I ended up babbling about stupid things, like the frog that got in the apartment that I had to rescue from the cat, and the mistake I found in a Star Trek reference in an article I was editing, and the huge white birds that I finally figured out were herons and egrets. I just wanted to talk to him before he went in the hospital. He said he was nervous, and I told him not to be, that it would be OK. I am sure he appreciated hearing from me, but there's a part of me that thought he was probably thinking, Frogs? Birds? Really?! This is the conversation we're having??