It's Friday morning (ok, early afternoon). I'm sitting in the den blogging with my feet above the desktop keyboard to where I have to reach around my knees to type. No one else understands how I do it but to me it's surprisingly comfortable. My sister Laura's in the kitchen eating breakfast, something I should do any minute. The house phone rings. Yes, we have a landline. I pick up the waterproof yellow phone in front of me to check the caller-id. I don't recognize it, so I set the phone down. Since I only live here part-time no one calls me on this number. Even when I lived here full-time every single phone conversation went something like this:
Katie: Hello?
Caller: Hey, Sarah, it's Somebody Random who just keeps talking until I have to cut her off.
Katie: This isn't Sarah. Hold on, let me find her for you.
Caller: Oh, sorry, Laura.
Katie: Not Laura either.
Caller: Wow! Christina you sound so grown up.
Katie: Keep guessing.
Caller: Freddy?
Yeah. I don't answer the phone anymore because apparently I sound like a man... Besides, if it's not for me, why answer the phone? To take a message? We have this cool machine that does that for us.
I hear Laura in the kitchen also pick up the phone and check the caller-id. She must recognize the name because she answers the phone.
Laura: Hello?
Woman: Who is this?!
Laura: Laura.
Woman: Oh. Sorry. Wrong number. Bye.
Laura: Bye.
She hangs up and bursts out laughing. "The woman spazzed when a female answers the phone! It was so funny."
After chastising her for saying her name to a stranger (In my mind the appropriate answer is, "You called me; who is this?") we had a good laugh at this stranger's wrong number. Maybe it's because I'm a writer that I want to know what her thoughts were when Laura answered the phone. Was she calling home to check on a husband she suspects is cheating? Was she expecting a young child to answer (or not answer) the phone? Is she just a freak-out lady?
We laugh, and I return to my blogging.
<>< Katie
1 comment:
What an interesting visual.
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