I'd like the phone company to add a feature to the phone, one where someone calling at 2 a.m. would need to enter some sort of code to indicate "I know it is 2 a.m. and I certify that this is a true emergency and I have confirmed that this is the number I need to call."
Not only did whoever rang me at 2 a.m. this morning not have that, he or she didn't bother to say "Sorry, wrong number."
The damage was done. I don't spring out of bed in the morning when my clock radio goes off, but when the phone rings in the middle of the night, I'm Roy DeSoto jumping into my boots and sliding down the pole ready to deal with the emergency. Because nobody calls at 2 a.m. unless it is an emergency, right?
True, only once in my life have I ever had a late night (early morning) call really be an emergency. Usually it's a wrong number, once in a rare while it's my buddy on the west coast who forgets that I don't keep the same hours we did twenty years ago.
The ringing phone was a double shot of adrenaline, and my sympathetic nervous system did not return to its slumbering state until about the time the alarm clock went off.
I'm gonna go to bed now.
I'd shut the ringer on the phone off, but what if there is an emergency?
I had this "friend" who seemed to only call at 2 a.m. (no, not THAT kind of call). He was such a drama queen and he and his lover only seemed to fight at that hour, and it always involved shattered glass and injured pets and ingested bottles of pills and runs to the hospital and OH BY THE WAY could I run to Arlington to pick up the friends without a car who he'd also called? I spent many nights picking glass out of carpet and furry paws and giving police reports. Why on earth I left my phone on was a question I will forever ponder. And that's why that phone goes off at midnight every single night when I go to bed.
Posted by: dawn at March 4, 2006 12:13 PM