Exercising the family webcam

Finally, after weeks of ignoring the situation, I cave in and call home. I’ve been in France now for four months and haven’t heard the sound of my mom and dad’s voice in several weeks. And I’m fine with that.

Every time I call, it’s the same story. My mom answers first.

With that, my dad stands up in front of the camera, lifts his white polo shirt up to his chest and slaps his stomach with a thud, then turns to the side and slaps it again.

“Colette!” She says brightly, her voice singing my name in a wave-like motion. Moments later, my dad says hello on the basement phone. “Oh, Colette!” His greeting is just as jovial but with a hint of exasperation when he hears he’s got company.

Then, the obligatory simultaneous conversations by my parents, each of them verbally elbowing each other for air time like two chickens in a neighborhood fight.

“How are you doing?” My mom’s Midwestern accent spills into the earpiece.

“So, what have you been up to lately?” Says my dad, a little more lively this time.

“Fern, you don’t have to yell!”

“I’m not yelling!”

“It’s because you’re both on the phone,” I say flatly, raising my voice above both of them, for I have come to know this situation every time I call them.

Once I get the two kids settled down, I ask them how they’re doing.

“Well, I’ve lost 18 pounds!” my dad practically shouts into the receiver. I glance down at the growing flab at my middle and grimace at the thought that I have become the fattest member of my family. Luckily, thousands of miles separate me from the consequences.

“That’s worth talking on the webcam, isn’t it!” My mom shrieks.

Since discovering Skype, the answer to travelers’ prayers around the world, I have been able to call my parents – and anyone else, for that matter – for free on my computer. The webcam is an added bonus, included in most new Macs and snatched up by PCers with an extra 39 bucks lying around. The whole package is a godsend.

“Oh, dad hasn’t set it up yet.” My mom says.

“You don’t need to set it up. Just log in!” I shout, already annoyed, two minutes in. It’s gotta be a record.

My dad finally goes downstairs and readies himself to turn on the computer and put in his password. My mom informs me that she is cooking dinner.

“That’s fine, I’m eating too,” I say, shoveling another spoonful of soup into my mouth. I am sick with bronchitis for the fifth time this year.

While my mom and I talk, my cell phone rings. The number pops up as “123456.” That’s strange, I think.

“So, what have you been doing that’s keeping you so busy that you don’t have time to call your parents?” My mom inquires, “have you got a new boyfriend or something?”

“Ha ha,” I grunt, happy the webcam is not yet installed, for I think the weight of telling my mother that I am dating a 21 year old, weeks after my 29th birthday, might be too much for her.

I quickly change the subject. And then my home phone rings. Strange, I think again, since no one has called me for days. After all, I only have two friends here.

“My phone just rang twice,” I say, “did Dad just call me?”

“Bill, did you just try calling Colette?” My mom yells down the basement stairs. Moments later, “Yes, he just called you. You told him to call you, right?”

“Yes,” I say, beginning to become rather exasperated, “but I am on the phone with you on the computer, so how am I going to talk to Dad on the phone at the same time?”

Before I get myself worked up, I make a mental note of how my parents still don’t know how to use the VCR, so I shouldn’t expect them to understand the challenging world of the internet.

“Colette!” My mom interrupts my thoughts, “dad has it hooked up downstairs. Let’s change phones.”

We both hang up and moments later, my computer is ringing.

“Hello?” I say hesitantly. And then my dad’s now gaunt face pops up on the screen. “Whooaaa!!” I yell, my voice bouncing off my tall French ceilings. It’s like looking at a different man.

“I’ve had to take in all my pants again,” my dad smiles. He’s just finished a month of detox with my mom. “Apparently, you’re only supposed to lose about 5-10 pounds on these detoxes but I lost almost 20.”

“You must have been really toxic,” I say.

“But this is where I’ve really lost the most.” With that, my dad stands up in front of the camera, lifts his white polo shirt up to his chest and slaps his stomach with a thud, then turns to the side and slaps it again.

“Ok! Yes, I get it!” I am not sure if I can handle anymore of these graphic images.

Finally, he sits down. Then, my mom comes downstairs and sits next to him. Her bony shoulder blades poke out from her orange tank top as her pixie face pops into the screen.

“Colette! Hello!” Her smile opens up like a budding tulip, then her mouth closes over something and she is crunching like a rabbit.

“What are you eating?”

“A parsnip!” She says excitedly, launching into her familiar style of reporting everything she eats. “I just grilled it. Then we’re having salmon and asparagus, with quinuoa and red pepper.”

As my mom munches and my dad leans way too far into the camera, we talk about my life here in France.

“Bill, you don’t have to yell!” My mom interrupts him.

“I’m trying to make my voice reach Colette across the ocean,” my dad grins mischeivously.

My mom then goes into a long-winded explanation of her last piano recital.

“And I wore my red kimono – have you seen my red kimono? Anyway, my students played the song I wrote at the honor’s concert – it won the award, you know – and – Bill, yes, this is a long story, just let me tell it – I got to go onstage at the end of the song. I talked to the conductor beforehand and we agreed that instead of shaking hands at the end, we would bow. So we did our little bow at the end! It was fun.”

“Ooh, cool,” I nod. Actually, it is pretty cool that she wrote a piece of music and it was chosen to be played by 20 students, who were selected as the best players in the state. My mom, the creator. Hopefully, I’ve got that somewhere in my genes.

I go on to tell them how I am doing better these days, and about my recent trip to London for my golden birthday where I saw Keira Knightly on the street.

“Really!” My dad practically shouts.

“Oh,” my mom feigns knowledge of this actress even though I know she has no idea.

“Wait, you guys know who she is?” I smile.

“Oh yea!” says my dad, inching towards the screen, “she was in ‘Atonement’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice’… and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean and –“

“Whoa, okay… so you’re a fan of Keira Knightly huh?” I laugh, “you know everything she’s ever been in?”

I look over to see that my mom has finished her parsnip, and now has her left leg sticking straight up in the air while she grabs hold of her ankle in a bizarre, circus-like stretch.

“Mom, what are you doing?!” I laugh. She laughs too.

“I did it on purpose for you,” my mom shrieks between giggles. Then both of us are doubled over in laughter while my dad sits shaking his head. He’s admittedly the only normal member of the family. If my brother were here, he would certainly be making faces at himself in the webcam instead of actually looking – much less, talking – to me. My mom and I finally calm down, dabbing at our eyes with our respective Kleenex – a Davidson trait.

“So, do you want me to leave now so you and your mom can talk about boys?” My dad grins.

“Um… yes,” I say. The thought of describing my new, much younger love interest to my dad makes me cringe.

“So, what’s his name?” my mom asks shyly when it’s just the two of us, her Minnesota accent cutting in and out sharply.

“Martin,” I say, trying to make the name, popular with the over-70’s crowd in the U.S., somehow sound cool.

“What does he do?” Her lips are taut. Does she know?

“He’s a writer, like me. That’s how we started talking actually,” I go into a long tangent about how he’s into Beat poetry, spoken word and performing, in hopes that she won’t ask the inevitable question that will lead me to tell her I am a cradle-robbing Mrs. Robinson.

“How did you meet Martin?” she attempts the French accent.

“He picked me up at the Laundromat,” I laugh. She laughs too, but much tighter than mine. Surely I have told her this story already, of course leaving out the much-needed detail that I am dating the guy.

We blab on for another few minutes and I am shocked to find out that she never asks his age. Surely she must remember our conversation weeks ago when I told her I met a 21-year old writer in the Laundromat. If my dad were here, his elephant’s memory would no doubt call me out on the truth. Of course, my dirty laundry would momentarily be hanging out to dry over my parent’s dinner anyway, my mom never one to keep a secret for very long.

And why did I care, anyway, I wondered? I was being treated like a queen. So what that my baby brother was… 26?

We said our goodbyes and I went off to bed, thinking about how my parents are getting old. My dad’s hair is almost completely white now, and he doesn’t hear as well as before. My mom can still do the splits, but she forgets everything I tell her. Is it time I stop all this traveling nonsense and come home? At what point in a vagabond’s life does the nomad decide to return to normalcy? My parents won’t be around forever, that’s for sure, and I am not getting any closer to a husband and babies. Not that France can’t provide me with such luxuries, but no one’s come asking yet.

I close up my computer and get ready for bed. Before I climb under the covers, I brush away a pile of clothes on my rug and drop down into the middle splits.

Yup, I think, still got it.