A few years back, I was on the phone with my mom. I asked her what she was going to do for the rest of the day. She said she wanted to clean and organize her storage room, but there was a terrible smell coming from under the kitchen sink, so she might clean that out instead. She hadn’t made up her mind. I encouraged her to make the unbearable stench her priority.
Later that day, she left a voice mail message, which I have re-saved every hundred days for approximately four years until we cancelled our landline. I have played it for countless people. My husband and I occasionally recite it to each other. Since the actual recording is gone forever, I thought I’d transcribe it for posterity.
As you read this, imagine the Minnesota accent…
“Susie, you don’t have to call me back, but I wanted to tell you what I found. Potatoes — under that sink! And they were so rotten you couldn’t even tell what they were. They were just mush. So I threw out the bucket. And cleaned up the area. And that should take care of the problem. Good-bye.”
Great work, mom.