Obligations, or Why I Need to Screen All Phone Calls

I have this friend. I use the term loosely, as I only see her a couple of times a year. She's nice and all, but she's not someone I'm terribly close to. I met her in a local online group I joined years ago. This group would get together to exercise and do outdoor activities.

At the beginning, our little group would get together for hikes, bike rides, roller blading, snowshoeing, etc. Four of us trained for our first triathlon together, and two went on to do longer triathlons, but I was content to rest of my laurels and not have to run anything longer than a 10K, ever. (I really don't like running anymore, which I reinforce anytime I go to the gym and struggle to get myself to just do the elliptical for 25 minutes. I ran cross country and distance events in track in high school, so I think I got it out of my system then. I will grant you that it's great exercise, but I can't do the whole mind over matter thing anymore!)

This was the group that introduced me to my good friend Amy, who also has a son with Autism, born a month before Hutton. We got together two or three times a week when we were pregnant to do water aerobics at the local pool, then to eat lunch at a Chinese restaurant. After both of our sons were diagnosed, I thought a lot about our pool sessions and lunches, and wonder if they had something to do with it. The heavily chlorinated public pool? The possibly MSG-laced food? Who knows! Anything is possible. Of course, I also think my eight mercury-laden fillings had a lot to do with it, and Amy has a lot of tattoos, and who knows what is in those. Amy was the one who helped me figure out where to go to get a diagnosis, as the wait lists to just get a diagnosis were months long, and when you're trying to get started helping treat Autism, having to wait six months to just be told, "Yep, your son does have Autism. We don't have anything we can do about it. You can sign up for our ABA treatment, but there's a year-long wait for that. Buh-bye." Anyway, Amy found a neurologist in Tacoma, about an hour and half south of here, who didn't have a wait list and was willing to provide a piece of paper saying, "This child may or may not have Autism, but here's a piece of paper that says he does so he can get on some wait lists for treatment." Actually, the piece of paper got Hutton into the early intervention program and speech therapy, so that was nice to have as we waited on ABA treatment.

Back to my other friend. She joined this group a few years ago, when the group had moved to meeting mostly for social reasons a few times a year, rather than for exercise a few times a month. Yes, we've evolved. Every once in a while, someone new will join and realize we're not really an exercise group anymore. They either get annoyed and leave, and, as one person did, rate us as an abysmal exercise group when posting for the last time, or say, "Fine, I like social stuff. I'm in!" We email regularly, and keep up with each other's lives, and some of us do still exercise, but that's not really our focus anymore. So, this friend recently emailed all of us some information about this program she and her husband were involved in. It has something to do with "excellence" and I don't think it's in the Bill and Ted sense. Needless to say, I don't want to have anything to do with excellence. I'm fine with mediocrity. Really, I've come to terms with that. I'm 34, I have two kids, some pets, get on to blog about my life a couple of times a week, and make extra money mystery shopping. I don't think any of that needs to moved to the next level. I did all of my excellence in school, and by the time I got to college, I started focusing on procrastination, which led me to mediocrity.

I was fine ignoring the email, thinking, "No thanks. Delete." Then, it happened. The phone call. A week ago, on Super Bowl Sunday, The Friend called. Fortunately, our phone wasn't working for some reason, because if I had had to answer the phone during the game to listen to her talk about the Conference for Excellence or whatever it's called, I might have been pissed. (She's Canadian, which is why she thought it was OK to call a person on Super Bowl Sunday.) After the game, I went upstairs and noticed a voice mail message, then figured out our phone wasn't working. I listened to the voice mail. It sounded ominous: "Laura this is The Friend. Can you please call me?" What is going on? The Friend never calls me. We communicate solely by email. Something must have happened! I didn't even think about Excellence. I went out to the car to get my cell phone, and called her back.

She told me about The Conference. There was a free introductory session at a hotel downtown on Wednesday night. Amy was going. I wondered if Amy really wanted to go, or if she was suckered in out of niceness. Amy has more backbone than I, so she might have actually wanted to go. I listened politely, then came up with my ace, "That sounds good. I have to check my calendar to see when my book club meeting is. I'm out in the car right now, but I'll go check it later." The next couple of days, I wondered if I should lie about my book club meeting being the same night as the conference, or if I should actually go. I did the classic Laura: I lied. But hey, that was night of the Duke-Carolina game, and I'd much rather watch that on TV than go to some conference!

I thought I was free. And then...another phone call! This one even worse than a call on Super Bowl Sunday. She called at 9 a.m. this morning. Friday morning. The one weekday morning I get to sleep in, as the boys don't have school and will usually keep themselves entertained until at least 9:30 before they start demanding food. I answered in my sleepy voice, but apparently The Friend, who is a psychologist, doesn't know when she's woken someone up. We made small talk for a minute, then she told me about ANOTHER introductory session. How was Tuesday the xth? Phew! Soccer night! "Oh, no, that's my soccer night." Hallelujah! Saved by soccer. Wait, she's countering. "How's Wednesday the xth?" Damn! Damn! "Hold on. I have to go check my calendar." I walked into the office, trying not to audibly sigh to let her know how damn annoying this was, to be awakened by a phone call pertaining to something I have absolutely no interest in. I looked at my calendar. Nothing. I was thinking, "That's probably actually going to be a book club night, as they're usually the second Wednesday of the month, but I already used that excuse, and it was the first Wednesday of the month. Would she buy it?" Sigh. I said, "My calendar is free. That will work for me!" faking enthusiasm. The Friend asked if I wanted to meet her and Amy beforehand for dinner. Sure, sounds great. Then she sealed my doom: "I'm glad that you're interested in doing this, since it's something I'm very involved in!" or something like that.

I really don't know anything about this stuff, but I feel like I'm about to step into a pyramid scheme or religious cult or something. Oh well, I have a month and a half to come up with an excuse. I don't think I'll use appendicitis, since I still have my appendix, and if I lied about that, I would probably be stricken with real appendicitis on the night of the next introductory meeting.