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January 13, 2002 - Sunday mysterious phone call This morning I called my cousin Randy but I accidentally dialed the wrong number at first. I dialed 3656 instead of 5636. The phone rang and rang. Finally an answering machine said, "Hi! This is Angela. I'm not able to come to the..." and I hung up, thinking that Angela probably had Caller ID and might call me to find out who I was. Then I dialed the correct number and spoke to Randy. Then I hung up and was putting on mascara in front of my vanity mirror. The phone rang. I figured Randy had forgotten to tell me something. "Hello?" I said. "Hello?" said a woman. There was a long pause. I said hello again. She said, "Melissa?" I said, "No..." Another long pause. I said, "You have the wrong number." Long pause. Then I figured it out. "Is this Angela?" I said. "Yes." She sounded all wary. I decided to put her out of her misery. "I just called your answering machine a little while ago by accident. Are you 3656? I was trying to call my cousin. His number is 5636. I figured it out when I got your machine and I was even thinking, 'I bet she has Caller ID and she's gonna call me back.'" "Oh... is this [gross mispronounciation of my soon-to-be-ex-husband's last name]?" "Yeah." "See, and sometimes your name has come up on my machine before, and I've always wondered who you were." "Oh, man. I guess I probably dial your number by accident all the time. Sorry about that." "It's okay." "Okay, well... bye." "Bye." I used to have Caller ID a long time ago. Scenes like the one rendered above are precisely why I don't have it anymore. At least I had the sense to prepare a little speech before I called strangers, though. "Hello. Did you just dial 713-555-5555?" I would say. "Because that's my number, and your number came up on the Caller ID." Then they could say, "Oh, I dialed the wrong number," we'd both feel like dorks, and that would be the end of it. Now I just let the strangers hang up on me and don't bother with Caller ID. Then I tell all my friends that I suspect my ex-boyfriend keeps calling and hanging up because he can't get over me. mysterious man Before going grocery shopping this morning, the kids and I had to remove the trash bag full of old toys from the trunk of our car. I'd had them sort through their toys a week before Christmas and put all the old, skanky ones in the bag so they could have room for anything Santa or my paycheck might bring in celebration of Christ's birth. Since then, the toys have been riding around Houston and the Texas Hill Country with me. I finally remembered that we needed to take them to Thrift Town and drop them off. So we went. I didn't think there would be a donation attendant working on Sunday so I planned to just drop the tightly-closed bag at the back loading dock and be on my merry way. There was a person parked right in front of the (closed, locked) loading dock. This person was sorting through what looked like half a dozen boxes of shoes. I wondered if the person was stealing donations. I don't really consider that stealing, though. People dump stuff behind the thrift stores because they don't want it anymore. Other people go to thrift stores when they can't afford retail prices. Who cares if people take dumped-off items from behind the closed thrift store? Not me. My dad says that technically, it's stealing. He says anything left on the grounds of the thrift store is thrift store property, whether the store's open or not. I guess he's right but I don't look down on people who loading-dock-dive behind the Goodwill or whatever. It's not like I've never, ever done it myself. So this person has a raggedy pick-up parked there and all the store's doors and bays are locked, but I still want to drop off my stuff. Maybe this person is dropping off stuff, too. Who knows? I park, tell the kids to stay in the car, and then pop my trunk. I ask casually as I lift the bag, "You work here?" The guy says, "Uh, yeah." His voice is gruff, but at first it doesn't register, in my mind, as incongruent with his heavily applied fuchsia lipstick. I say, "I have all these toys," and heft the bag for him to see. "Just put them over there by that green door," he says airily, pointing to an area 15 or 20 feet away, well behind his truck. I look at the green door, then look at my kids in my car, and say nothing. With a little sigh, he walks over and takes the bag from me. I smile and say, "Thank you so much," in my best Southern young lady voice. He stumbles a little as he hauls it over his shoulder and I see that he's wearing black boots with those new chisel-shaped heels, just like the ones worn by a couple of women at my work. And I see that those aren't the best heels for walking in gravel with a heavy bag of toys over one's shoulder. Then I see that his shoulder-length, burnt-orange hair is matted in the back, as if he slept on it and then didn't put it back on its styrofoam head and comb it out in the morning. Between head and heels, his jeans and t-shirt sagged anonymously, like they could have belonged to any boy or girl before passing through the second hand to his hands. "Thanks a lot!" I called out again. He grunted and I got into the car and drove my little family away. Later I told the story to Randy and the funniest thing wasn't his makeup or his wig or the fact that he reminded me of Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. The most hilarious thing was that, having lied to me about his thrift-store-privilege status, he had put himself in the position of having to carry my bag. "And now I know he couldn't have worked there, because he would have been like, 'Hi, let me take that from you, thank you so much, ma'am!'" "Plus he would have asked you did you want a receipt." "I know, right? You know he was all like, 'Aw, man. Let me just carry this lady's shit so she can get out of here.'" "I like how he was trying to be all cool, like, 'Oh, toys? They go over there. This area is for shoes.'" "I know, right? Poor guy. I hope that was a wig, 'cause if it was his real hair, it's all burned up and he's gonna have to cut it off and start over again." "I know, right?" "He should've just said, 'No, I don't work here. I'm just stealing the donations.' I wouldn't've given a shit." "Yeah, but he doesn't know that. You never know how people are gonna act." "Yeah... I know, right?" mystery conversation that never took place "I hate to hang up because being here by myself late at night always freaks me out. I always want to talk on the phone until I fall asleep. This is the time of night where I start hallucinating, thinking there's somebody in the hall or some shit." "Don't you lock your door?" "Yeah." "Who would be in your hallway, then?" "I don't know... the Grim Reaper." "The Grim Reaper? You really think he might be in your hallway right now?" "Well... yeah. Probably. I keep seeing this white thing flash across the wall... fuck, he's probably just waiting for me to hang up so he can kill me." "What do you do when it's late, you're scared, and you can't talk on the phone?" "Well... sometimes I pray. But when that's not enough, I usually get over it by thinking about sex. You know -- with people at my work or, like, movie stars and stuff." "There's only one thing you can do, then." "I know..." "Just hit on the Grim Reaper when he comes into your room." "Wha...? Ha! Shit, that would be funny." "Just sit up, pat your bed, and say, 'C'mere, Big Boy.'" "I'll be like, 'Oh, you don't have... That's okay. Your scythe has this nice, smooth handle. Are your wrist bones strong?'" "Ooh, that's sick!" "I know! That's gross, huh? That cracks me up. I'm still scared, but that cracks me up." "Well, don't worry. You're in an apartment complex, surrounded by..." "A bunch of idiots. You're right. The Grim Reaper will go see them before he messes with me." "Unless he's horny." "Exactly." "You should make this a diary entry." "No... it's never as funny when I type it all out, and I don't want people to know what kind of sick freak I really am." "Just post it, anyway." "I don't know. Maybe. All right, I'm gonna go now." "Okay." "Bye..." "Goodnight." |