“Hello it’s your mother.”

“Hello it’s your daughter.  I’ve been trying to call you for the past hour.”

“Why?  What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong Mom, I just wanted to ask you something for the Diary People.”

“What do they want to know?  It better not be perverted.”

“Oh, it’s not exactly a question.  People are doing this meme thing called ‘Two Truths and a Lie.’  I thought it might be fun for you to do one.”

“The Diary People are saying that Mamie Eisenhower tells one lie for every two truths?”

“Meme, Mom, not Mamie.  A meme is like a fad.”

“Why didn’t you just say ‘fad’?”

“…I don’t really have a good reason.”

“I don’t think that it’s right to start a fad calling Mamie Eisehower a liar.  Those Adlai Stevenson supporters sure know how to hold a grudge.  I wonder if it was started by Adlai’s wife.  You know I always suspected that Lady Bird might have been involved with the shooting because she wanted to be First Lady.”

“Yes Mom, you’ve told me about your grassy knoll theory…”

“What was Adlai’s wife’s name…I use to know it… Darlie Routier!  That’s it.”

“Mom, Darlie Routier is that woman that was convicted of killing her two sons.  Remember?  The Silly String lady.”

“That’s right.  Gee, it’s going to bug me if I can’t remember his wife’s name.”

“I’m by the computer, I can look it up.  Here it is - Ellen Borden.”

“That’s it!  Well that makes sense on why I got it confused with Darlie Routier.”

“Makes sense in what universe?”

“The Betty Universe.  Darlie killed two people, Lizzie Borden killed two people.  See?”

“Not really.  Your phone has been busy for the past hour.  Who were you talking to?”

“I was watching The Price is Right with my friends.”

“You took the phone off the hook?”

“I forgot I hadn't told you yet, Bob figured out how to use the speaker thing on the phone.”

“You pick up the receiver and punch ‘speaker’.”

“You never bothered to tell me that.  So, since this Swine ‘Flu thing, they’ve suspended all activities in the public rooms.  We’ve been lonely and trying to figure out a way we can still do things together.”

“Who is ‘they’?  You guys don’t have to stay away from each other.”

“I guess ‘they’ is us.  We decided that we need to be careful.”

“Mom, you really don’t have to take being careful to this level.  What does the speaker phone have to do with this?”

“We figured out that we can conference call if we get one resident on the phone, then hit the star key, then hit another intercom number, then that person can hit the star key and hit another intercom number.  We’ve can have five people on the phone at the same time.”

“That sounds like fun.  What have y’all been doing?”

“We all put it on speaker phone and pretend we’re in the audience for The Price is Right and Wheel of Fortune.”

“What has happened to the Jigsaw Battle?”

“We had to end that.  It turns out that Mrs. Marsh’s caregiver is from Jamaica.”

“Mom, this ‘flu thing is from Mexico.”

“You were always rotten at geography.  Look at a map.  Jamaica is very close to Mexico.”

“Mom, really you guys don’t have to take things to this extreme….”

“The young always think that.  Bob has to be extra careful.  His grandfather was Mexican.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“::sigh:: Don’t you ever watch the news?  You’re more likely to get this ‘flu if you’re Mexican.  You should be careful too.  I always suspected we might have a Spaniard in our woodpile.”

“Mom, Spain is Spain, Mexico is Mexico.  And neither thing is suppose to make you more likely to get this ‘flu.”

“They both speak Spanish.  And can you tell me for sure that being Mexican doesn’t have something to do with this?”

“Well, I’m not a scientist or anything, but…”

“That’s right, better safe than sorry.”

“Okay, this conversation is exhausting.  Do you want to do the ‘Two Truths and One Lie’ thing?”

“No, it’s not nice to start a fad rumors about a poor dead woman.  She just wanted to be First Lady.  You tell the Diary People that.”

“Will do.”