MYSELF COLUMN: Please call back again soon
By Erin Peters
While I was out recently, I received a telephone call. Since I am never home, and when I am the on the Internet is at privilege to my brothers, it is rare that the telephone would provide an opportunity for me to communicate. My father gave me the message.
“Judy called.”
“Who?”
“Judy. Some girl. Your friend.”
Pardon me for being a bad person, but I don’t know Judy, or even anyone whose name sounds like that.
“A friend from where?”
“School.”
As if that helped.At my house, the people most likely to answer the phone are my father or brothers. Despite the fear of a telemarketer, any ringing of the telephone must be answered because it might be an emergency. We don’t have caller id or an answering machine, so every time the phone rings there is a mad dash to answer it, but not a rush to forgive the interruption. The politeness employed by my father on the phone is limited because he is territorial and wants to know everything about anything.
Therefore, if the person on the other end of the phone wanting to speak to his daughter doesn’t automatically state who he or she is and what he or she wants, my father is resentful. He has learned from experience that asking why the call is taking place is a good chance for me to start a winning fight. He sounds rude quite frequently because he has to answer the phone and he can’t do it the way he wants. On the other hand, my older brother likes to be gruff to the other end of the phone to cause fighting. Whenever anyone calls for me, he says “What do you want?” as threatening as possible, because when he says it, it’s “protection” and has the off-guard response as a reason not to like whomever called.
It’s pretty much the same with my younger brother, except if he knows who is on the other end of the phone he tries to talk instead of me. Or when any girl calls and he giggles and giggles and giggles.
For my own protection, I do not even bother to ask if I received any calls, especially if I was expecting one. I don’t want to know about the antics performed. I’d rather pretend it doesn’t happen, especially since this behavior takes place even with me there, but it drives me crazy. Hardly ever does a message get taken, and if it happens it is less possible that it would be remembered or conveyed.
“Dad, did she say anything else?”
“No.”
“When did she call?”
“When I woke up.”
Judy, whoever you are, I don’t know what you want but am dying to know. And to everyone else: I hope my dad didn’t scare you as much as he did the girl from my speech class, and if he did I’m sorry.
Please try again.