Ladies and Gents: The Puppetmaster

I thought that I was doing a good thing. When I called me great-aunt to wish her a happy 95th birthday last week. Our conversation was cut short by phone problems, apparently from the storms hitting Santa Barbara. I told her daughter that I'd try to call back over the weekend. I called her yesterday and am now obligated to call her every other month. Oh, boy. I got the guilt trip laid on me about moving away without telling her -- in my defense, it was 2 1/2 years ago and I had told her in January that I was going to be moving, although I wasn't quite sure where. And I had two weeks to quit, pack, and leave. I told her and she was relieved to hear it was the suddenness of the move that prevented me from calling her, "Not that I'm one to dwell on things; I've never been one to hold a grudge." Ha! She's famous for it. That's why I have to call her every year on her birthday so I don't get moved to the top of her list. She also said that she's glad that I, and my father, have my grandmother's sense of humor. Hehe, my late grandmother was known for many things and humor was definitely not high on the list. So, here we are, at the end of our conversation, and I get manipulated (trust me, the word's not too strong) into calling her every other month, around the 15th. Wtf? How did that happen?! Six times a year. That's way more than I talk to my grandfather and probably more than I talk to my mother. In addition to the guilt, the phone call involved her relating my grandmother's last moments. Yeah, that's good telephone fun.