Relaxing with Jay

The past week has been exhausting for me, but fortunately I had something to look forward to everytime I came home. Mbaboy from the Tsinoy.com Forum had been kind enough to lend me his copy of Leading With My Chin, Jay Leno's autobiography. I'm a huge fan of Jay's and reading his anecdotes was a great way to de-stess.

I laughed through all the chapters, but my favorite parts are those about his family's eccentricities. Here is one story about his elderly aunt and uncle's first enounter with an answering machine that I find particularly hilarious:

...To avoid confusion, I made sure that my answering machine had a very basic greeting: "Hi, this is Jay. I'm not in right now. Please leave me your name and number."

So I got home from the road that particular Sunday and played my message. And I heard: "HELLO? JAAAAAY? HELLOOOOO? JAAAAAAY, IT'S YOUR UNCLE MIKE!"

Then I heard him say to my Aunt Rose, "I don't know where he is! He picked up the phone, then he walked away!"

Then I heard my Aunt Rose say, "Well, maybe he's in the bathroom."

For the next ten minutes, I heard a television in the background. Like they were waiting for me to come out of the bathroom! Then finally he shouted. "JAAAAAY, JAAAAAY? I DON'T KNOW WHERE HE IS!" And he hung up.

Then he called my mother to tell her I hung up on him!

She called me, furious, and said, "Why did you hang up on your Uncle Mike? He said he called you yesterday afternoon, you picked up the phone, you said hello, then you made a funny noise, and you hung up on them!"

"I didn't hang up! I wasn't even at home at the time! My machine picked up!"

"Oh, Mr. Big Shot with a machine! Mr. Fancy had the machine answer the phone!"

"I'm not Mr. Fancy! Everybody has an answering machine!"

"Well, your father and I don't have a machine!"

"YOU'RE EIGHTY! YOU DON'T NEED AN ANSWERING MACHINE! NOBODY CALLS YOU!"

I wish the book had been longer.