The Silent Treatment

Dearest Rachel –

I have to admit, it was something I hadn’t considered about traveling to a place like Honduras, where I don’t have coverage with my phone plan (although maybe it would be wise for me to look into one of those eSIM cards for future travels here and there). For the entirety of the week, I got no calls, or even texts; almost as if everyone who knew me – and evidently, those spammers and scammers who don’t – agreed not to bother me while I was down there working on one aspect of the organization down there or another. A silly thing to believe, perhaps, but that’s how it would have felt had I given the matter any thought.

I might also have concluded that what messages might have been sent while I was apparently unreachable would just pop up in my phone upon my return, as if they had gotten in the queue, but were never received. That didn’t happen either, further buttressing a conclusion that people had universally concluded to just not disturb me over the past week. After all, they could have just contacted me over one of those VoIP-type applications like WhatsApp, seeing as to how my contact number is the same on that as my phone number (and, while this may out me as less tech-savvy that I appear to most people, isn’t that the way with everybody on that app?)

As a brief aside, now that I’ve mentioned it, I’m going to assume that the reason the various spammers and scammers don’t bother with WhatsApp, despite its ability to get through to me when I’m otherwise incommunicado, is that there’s no good way to ‘spoof’ where their call is coming from. If they can’t fake coming from someplace nearby, if they’re outed as emanating from some call center phone bank in India or the like, what’s the point? They’re not going to be able to convince me to pick up the phone, when they’re clearly coming from some weird part of the world I’ve no connection to – or worse, can be traced backwards for potential legal pursuit (not that I would do that, personally – too much effort for the trouble it gives me – but I’m sure someone would).

None of which explains why my folks don’t try to communicate with me over the app when the usual cellular comm lines aren’t sufficient, but no matter, I suppose.

Anyway, this theory of mine regarding some ethereal queue of unanswered call and unread texts got blown up the other day when Kris reached out to me about coming to the house on Monday and doing her usual monthly (well, quad-weekly, more accurately) cleaning. The tone of her message suggested that she was afraid I wasn’t speaking to her, for reasons she hadn’t been able to understand; as if I was passive-aggressively giving her the silent treatment. Why she would think that of me, I’ve no idea; you’d think she’d know better than that. On the other hand, what does that say about her overall clientele, if that’s the conclusion she instinctively defaults to upon confronted with an extended period of radio silence?

Of course, now that I was home and able to get her message, I did what I could to disabuse her of the notion; I was simply out of cellular range, with regard to getting calls or messages, and hadn’t even known whether she’d even tried to reach me (which leaves me wondering who else may have been trying to get in touch with me, with no success. I’ve sent a couple of messages since returning to ‘Lee’ to let her know where I’ve been – to which she responded with some appreciation for letting her know, along with a little bit about what she and her son had been doing in the interim – but that’s about the extent of it). And much to my surprise, whatever she may have sent me in my absence never arrived in my phone, so I’ve no idea what she may have said.

But as it so happens, there may have been a reason for her to be concerned about the silent treatment. In the few days since I’ve been back, it’s come to my attention that I’ve been too lax regarding the boys, and their lack of assistance in keeping the house clean in between visits. It would seem that she worries that I’ve been wasting my money and her time having her come in and clean up the place, if they’re going to just leave their areas as cluttered as they are.

The thing is, this kind of mess, while perhaps of a level to get under her skin (actually, there’s no ‘perhaps’ about it – the fact that word got back to me about what she said suggests that it bothers her enough to say something to others about it), isn’t all that much worse than life back in the day> In fact, it may be better, as there’s plenty of floor space visible to walk around in.

The thing is, I don’t consider it money wasted; this is keeping the place from falling into too much clutter and disrepair, which was the problem that befell us back in the day. Back then, letting a little and a little take over the place, without fighting back against the many littles, eventually grew into a lot, which you were incapable of taking on, since – when you wanted to – it was too much to accomplish all at once and, by dint of it being thus impossible, we surrendered to it. That’s not happening here.

I may be slightly annoyed at being talked about, but I won’t dent the reality of the situation – or, once it’s pointed out, try to do something about it. And if she’ll still come and clean for us, I’m more than willing to have Kris do it. Not sure what to do about Logan, though.

And with that having been said, I hope that you aren’t too upset with these tales being told out of school about us back in the day – and that you’ll continue to keep an eye on us, and wish us luck as we deal with all this. Clearly, we’re going to need it.