In what was meant to be a quick check-in but quickly escalated into an unholy phone call marathon, Jared S., 34, found himself caught in his mother Carol’s conversational web, despite deploying every hang-up maneuver known to mankind.
“It started out normally,” Jared muttered, staring numbly at his finally silent phone. “I just wanted to see how she was doing and maybe talk for five minutes. Then, 45 minutes later, I was hearing about her old neighbor’s third cousin’s dog and doubting if I’d ever escape.”
Jared’s mom, Carol S., 62, is well-known for her ability to turn any conversation into a multi-generational saga, often recapping entire decades of small talk in a single call. “The chat was supposed to be a quick catch-up, but she ended up explaining her whole morning at the doctor’s office, every magazine article she skimmed in the waiting room, and the recipe for a Great British Bake Off cake she doesn’t even plan to make,” Jared sighed.
Attempting to steer the conversation to a close, Jared pulled out the classic “Oh, I should let you go,” not once but three times. “Each time, she’d acknowledge it briefly, then dive straight into Cousin Linda’s cat’s hairball problem or something equally riveting,” he said. “It was like talking to an unstoppable force of tangents.”
Communication experts say mothers like Carol wield an almost supernatural ability to ignore all hang-up cues. “When a son says, ‘Well, I guess…’ he’s deploying what we call the polite wrap-up cue,” noted Dr. Nancy M, a specialist in family communication. “Mothers, however, treat that pause as an open invitation to circle back to every point of interest since 1985.”
Desperate, Jared went for bolder tactics. “I tried raising my voice as if my wife was calling me over,” he confessed. “But Mom just paused and said, ‘Oh, give her my love!’ and then launched into a story about Tupperware parties in the late ‘90s. I was at my breaking point.”
When even the infamous “fake bad connection” move failed, Jared realized he was up against a formidable opponent. “I started cutting out my words, hoping she’d think it was poor reception,” he said. “But she didn’t skip a beat, launching into her own tale about her ‘Verizon roaming charges from 2003.’”
Carol, for her part, seemed unaware of her son’s increasing distress. “I just love chatting with my Jared! He always sounds so busy,” she shrugged, scrolling through her contacts for another potential call recipient. “Is it really so bad to catch up a bit?”
Mercifully, Carol eventually mentioned needing to start dinner, giving Jared the slimmest glimmer of hope. But even then, he endured another 10 minutes of “by the ways” and “one last thing” finales, including:
- A minute-by-minute recap of her grocery store aisle rearrangements. (“Now bread’s where cereal used to be! Isn’t that wild?”)
- A request to “please wear a jacket; it’s chilly out there.”
- And a final soliloquy on how “kids grow up so fast” nowadays.
“The hardest part is that she knows how to wrap up but chooses not to. It’s like she’s the Michael Jordan of not hanging up—just when you think she’s done, she comes back in with another story.”
At press time, Jared was seen eying an incoming call from Carol, face wrought with silent terror, as he braced himself for round two.
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