Sunday, May 23, 2010

Wrong Number

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:

Anonymous said...

What an interesting visual.