julie wonders about rollie . . .

so today . . . i was sitting in the family room doing some computer work and watching tv, when i got this message from rollie, who was upstairs in the man-room.

"rollie had leftover subway for lunch."

huh?

first of all, it is not uncommon for us to text each other from different rooms in our house. our phones are always with us, and it is a much more pleasant way to communicate than to try to yell up the stairs, or worse yet, WALK up the stairs when you need to get someone's attention. but i knew he had eaten leftover subway for lunch, because he had actually told me that in person when he came down to get his sandwich. and he was talking in the third person--i don't believe i have ever heard him do that before. so how to respond . . .

i texted back, "ok?"

he replied, "rollie wishes he could be watching the USC game."

i also knew that--he had been bemoaning the fact that the usc game was not going to be on tv today. and he was still talking in the third person. i wasn't quite sure what he was up to . . .

so i said, "yes, he told me that this morning."

and the conversation continued . . . "rollie is considering a nap."

"that would probably be a good idea--a nice long nap--maybe in an institution . . . "

"rollie is ignorning negative feedback and preparing for imminent unconsciousness."

so i decided to give it a try myself and see what happened.

"julie is going to drink the rest of the pop and eat half a cheese sandwich. how exciting is that!"

"rollie just sneezed, disturbing the stealthy approach of probable somnamulance."

huh? "bummer," i replied.

"undeterred, rollie is trying to attain blessed unconsciousness once again."

"good to know."

"he's just oozing consistency and integrity!"

"ewww--oozing?!?"

"metaphorically. rollie has recently added a canine nap enhancement accessory to his journey toward nirvanah."

"good luck then--at least the canine isn't trying to eat my puny sandwich."

"rollie has discovered that tweeting can sometimes inhibit continuity in his daily pursuit of productivity."

and then i got it. he was pseudo-tweeting. i say pseudo, because he is not signed up for twitter. he is just not that into all the social networking stuff. he says he socially networks with real people all day long, so when he comes home he is looking for peace and quiet--not more 'chatting.'

i wondered how long this game was going to continue. but i did my part.

"especially when he uses such a vocabulary!"

"rollie is distressed at the pedestrian vocabularial attainments of his followers." i guess that would be me . . .

so i decided, fine--i would not subject him to my 'pedestrian vocabulary' and i stopped texting him.

a few minutes later he said, "the attainment of oblivion appears to remain equidistant, as rollie communicates his journey toward that end."

my response? "hmmm. shut up and take a nap!"

he continued. " . . . and yet my canine accessory appears oblivious to my distress, and has preceded me to my objective!" i took that to mean that milo was sleeping . . .

i said, "canines are like that--of course, they don't have phones!"

"seems to be a somewhat unfair advantage . . . "

"having a phone? or not having one?"

"the absence of the communicative accessory."

as entertaining as this had been, i was starting to get tired of thinking up responses. so i just said, "ahh."

but he wasn't done yet. "rollie requests that his multitudinous adherents refrain from response so that he can continue his quest for oblivion."

did he not understand 'shut up and take a nap?!?' i was not the one keeping him awake--it was his 'twittering.' "okey dokey," i said.

finally, phone silence. my brain settled back into it's vegetative state. and then several minutes later the phone beeped again.

"rollie has abandoned his fruitless quest for restorative somnambulance and has embarked on a mission to relieve excretory urgency." ok then. more than i needed to know, but ok.

"well, at least he is adaptable."

and then a few minutes later, "so what do you think--should i twitter?"

let's see, how can i put this . . . NO! NO!! NO!!! PLEASE DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!!

but instead i said, "i am going to take a short nap. and this will be my final communication about it."

"okay." he said. "hope it works out better than mine."

it did--i was able to nap for about 45 minutes. of course, i wasn't laying there thinking up enormous, obscure words to "tweet" with . . .