Why I hate answering the phone.

2002-06-09 - 3:30 a.m.

My least favourite way to wake up is to the phone ringing. It's worse, even, than the annoying default buzzer that has no volume control in most clock radios. It's especially worse if it rings incessantly.

I remember my brother trying to call, getting the machine, hanging up and calling again, ad infinitum. I eventually picked up the phone, said "Hello?" To make sure it was him, and once I was sure I interrupted whatever it was he had to say with, "Hey Phil, ringing over and over again doesn't make me feel good. I'm still sleeping. Unless someone's dead, leave me the fuck alone." I added a lot of venom to the voice, he didn't call back.

He's actually a part of the reason, unwittingly of course. A few years ago someone called in the middle of the night. I thought it was Phil. He was stuck somewhere where the busses wouldn't go. He was scared and didn't know what to do. There is no way you can explain how it feels to have a loved one's voice sobbing into the phone unless you've experienced it.

Of course it was actually a psycho named Trevor Smith. Once I realised who it was, I quickly tried to get off the phone. Trevor Smith was possibly pre-schizophrenic, but he was definitely no stranger to being someone's whore and getting himself out of situations. And I think I will never forgive him for sounding like my brother.

The other reason is that bill collectors call repeatedly. My crappy landlord would call repeatedly. I've learned that if the phone keeps ringing, even if you have a message system that answers the phone after three rings, it's either someone who isn't related but wants money, or it's a psycho.

Of course, I still answer the phone. And I still hate it.

And so Pookie called. Repeatedly. Because he's on his 24 hour shift. With the dying people. He called because someone who had the same name as him, ("Pookie II"), with whom he'd developed some sort of relationship, had somehow, during the period of a few hours, changed from perfectly healthy to likely to die. Stomach cancer that's mestacisized (sp).

Cheers,

the Magus

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