**Note: In today's post, the part of my telephone is played by another ringing device. My phone plays music, but "In the Hall of the Mountain King" didn't come across as distinguishably "phone like" as a ring. After several phone interviews, I found an acceptable substitute. In today's post, the part of my phone is played by "ring ring."
Thank you. Now back to our post.**
Ring ring…
??
Ring ring..
Phone?
Ring ring..
Phone?
9am?
Why?
Ring ring
"Eh-woh?"
"Hi, This is Bob Smith from Charter Cable. I'm calling to set up a time to have your cable installed."
"I don't need cable installed.'
"Why not sir?"
"Because It was installed 2 years ago."
"Are you sure?"
?? Am I? I slide into a whole Descartian internal dialogue over "Do I exist?" I'm about to search for a piece of wax to sample when the cable guy interrupts.
"Sir?"
Identity must wait, accept what I think I know as a given. "Yes. I'm sure."
"Is this 1234 Undisclosed Address Road?"
Finally, an easy question! "No."
"I'm sorry to have bothered you sir."
"No problem."
Click
I roll over. Into my pillow I fall, here, Descartes and Nietzsche duke it out with light sabers in a pit of lions.
Later, I wake up naturally, refreshed and assured in my existence. There's a question of importance and a taste for raw meat, but I'll work that out later. Right now, there's a cup of coffee with my name, waiting to be created. While the coffee perks, the phone rings.
"Hello?"
"Sorry to disturb you…"
The voice is familiar, like a ringing in my head…It's Cable Man!
"Sorry, you have the wrong number. I already have cable."
At this point he takes my word. I've proven myself an authority on what I do and don't need.
"Sorry to bother you sir."
Ring ring.
This time it's MyWife. Why is she calling? She just wants to make sure I found where she left the house keys. We exchange small talk…
OOH! Best Buy has a sale on printers! I need one of those now!
…more small talk, she's sitting around her new house bored.
It's Tuesday? Why no work?
We reach the point of boredom equilibrium. The moment where staying on the phone any longer becomes more tedious that whatever we weren't doing before.
Goodbye.
Goodbye is a new weirdness for us. When we were together we exchanged the usual "I love you" salutation. Now it's different. What do we say? Who are we? "We" don't exist. If we were like most divorcing couples we could yell obscenities, slamming the phone down before the other could retort. That's not us.
It's like my Jr. High talent show. My friends and I did this AC/DC air-guitar thing. We sucked. Then again we didn't pretend to be good. We knew we sucked going in. There was this other act though. They thought the were sooo cool (yes, you need to say that correctly: that's end "sooo" high, then drop "cool" lower than you started.). They climbed on stage and did a decent version of "Running with the Devil." They were pretty tight, for middleschoolers. They did have one serious problem though.
"Running with the Devil..."
They forgot how the song ended. They spent five minutes repeating the final loop.
"Running with the Devil..." No, I think even he's sitting this one out.
That's how our phone call ended. Finally somebody says "I'm gonna go now."
"Okay," Says the other.
Click.
That's when the phone rings again. This is more phone than I've had all last month! Caller ID says it's some suspicious 800 number. I let it fall into voicemail limbo. Soon the phone blinks.
They left a message?
It's the cable company. Apparently The Cable messenger they sent earlier has failed his mission, it's the cable Gods themselves insisting I call to reschedule my install, or I'll be smitten.
Why this sudden interest in my cable?
A slow but gradual candle begins burning in the back of my head. There's plenty of oxygen to feed it's light, but not much else. Slowly ideas come together, forming a gauze hypothesis.
It's Tuesday. Why no work?
I call MyWife's cell phone. Now I'm in voicemail.
"Hey, it's me. Did you give the cable company my phone number for install?"
She calls back. Yes she did. Why didn't she give them her number? Because she doesn't have one. She's getting her phone through the cable. Why not give them her cell? I guess they wanted something more substantial, more real, more concrete.
The irony makes me smile. Yes, there is a God.
"Ok, well they called. I'm gonna go." I have no problem saying goodbye.
13 comments:
That's hilarious. I could totally see you putting two and two together. And I love that you didn't hang on long enough for yourwife to figure out that she took the day off for nothing.
Now that I've had a good laugh...
Anyway, just wanted to point out that's a bit passive aggressive. I only mention it because I've spent quite a bit of time squelching my P/A tendencies. ;)
Extendedforecast,
Yeah, I mentioned that the candle in my brain was "slow and gradual," but my sense of self preservation is as keen as a field mouse in a ferret convention. No need in giving her time to add things together.
Azhira,
Why squelch it? Embrace the PA! Besides, if you're like me, it only complements the OCD and the IIBC (Ignorance is bliss complex). Actually though, I miss the passive aggressive here. It was unintentional, even by Freudian standards. Don't get my wrong, I'm not denying that I'm passive aggressive, I just don't see it in action here.
I agree, I don't see any PA-ness in this situation. If anything, it was your soon-to-be-ex-wife that should have communicated with you. Then again, I can be the queen of passive aggressiveness.
P.S. I removed the above post because of a spelling error that I could not get past. That's my mild case of OCD for you.
LOL!
I've got you topped on the OCD. See, I got the email, saying you'd posted the first time, then I got the email for the second, with the added PS So, now I'm combing through the first one to see where the spelling error is. Which is, in itself, hilarious because I can't spell. Now that's OCD...
Or is it simply pathetic?
And if it helps your OCD, I can erase that whole "Comment Deleted" thing. I know how those things can cause a frustrating tick. ;)
I spelled aggressive wrong at the end.
Pathetic, huh.
Oh, you know what, I somehow didn't read the last line. lol I thought you didn't mention it to her at all... :)
extendedforecast,
Thanks, I found it. I had to, I'm OCD (yeah you know me), sorry bad joke. A play off the old "OPP" song...nevermind.
When I couldn't find which word was misspelled by comparing the 2 emails, I did a cut and past to one of my fine Microsoft products. Spell check said "here it is idiot." I said thanks and moved on. I have to take that kind of abuse from the inanimate: they scare me.
Azhira,
Ya know, I hope you don't read your books the same way! It would suck the life out of Whodunits. You'd just get all the possibilities without a close.
Well that would make it just like life, huh? As you were... ;)
Actually, I do have that problem when I read other stuff...lol... I often get in too much of a hurry. :)
See, I'm the opposite. I take forever to read things. I read every word. I figure somebody put it there for a reason, I love retrieving every nuance from what I read. It pisses most people off, but what the hell, I'm not reading for them. ;)
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