drive by
The other day I got a call from someone who I hadn’t heard from in a long, long time. Someone who I was kind of hoping I would never hear from again.
He had apparently managed to get himself in some sort of trouble stemming from an incident that sounded like a cross between a bar fight and an episode of road rage. And not in a good way.
Because let's just say that it was a long and complicated story and when he said he hit someone I wasn’t listening closely enough to figure out if he meant with his fist or his car.
When he was done, I told him that I couldn’t help him and gave him the names of a couple of people who might be able to. Then I tried to hang up, but he kept talking.
"So," he said, "I see you’ve moved to a new place."
"What do you mean?" I said. And what I’m thinking is: I haven’t moved since 1995.
"Well," he said, "I was driving by your house the other day -–"
"Mmmmm," I said. And what I’m thinking is: I live on a dead end street.
" -- and I saw a baby carriage on the front porch."
"Oh, yes," I said, "That must have been the day my friend, um, Ellen stopped by with her 18-month-old. She visits, like, um, all the time. Well, nicetalkingtoyougottagobye."
And what I’m thinking is: Here’s to long-lost friends. May they stay that way. Permanently.
Who’s been calling you lately?
25 comments:
Jeebus, not for nothing but that's CREEPY. And not in a funny way. This is why I don't do Facebook -- there are tons of people I'd rather not hear from, ever.
It seems lately the only people that call are the robo-scheduling-confirmers from my various docs office. Talk about enabling my out-of-body experience.
Is that turkey bacon? God I'm starving now.
I've been getting calls from a guy who works at a local bank, calling to try to get me to consolodate a small amount of credit card debt. He's really nice and I feel bad for him because he has a shitty job that requires him to cold call people, so I haven't had the balls to tell him to bugger off.
I hope your creepy "friend" leaves you alone.
And that is why I love caller ID! If I don't recognize the number (and sometimes if I do!), I don't answer the phone. Of course, no one calls me anyway - I hate the phone, so I don't call them either!
I agree with Tash...creepy.
@previous comments: Creepy is sooo right.
Of course, if I'd been a little faster on my feet, I'd have said something like "Why, yes, I did move. To [faraway city] in [distant state]. And we sold our house to this weird guy who claimed he was a CIA agent. He said he was going to raise pit bulls in the basement. And he thought the living room would be a great place to store his extensive gun collection."
Yikes. I do hope you never hear from or see him again.
Also I hate when I think of good answers way too late to use them.
As for who's been calling me... my sister, who's divorced with two kids, to announce that she and the kids are moving in with the guy she's been seeing for only a few months. Seems like only yesterday she wasn't even sure that he liked her. I don't want to see her or her kids get hurt again.
Creepy! (and that bacon looks good!)
I'm avoiding my sister. Which is pretty easy since she never calls and I deleted her from my address book so I can't call her.
-e
Creepy is also the first word that came to my mind. *slight shudder* May you never hear from nor see him again.
An old sort of friend who has a LOT of personal problems, all of which are totally obvious to the rest of us in terms of how to solve, except to her.
And they never get solved, ever, and she constantly emails with giant prayer requests because this time, God will help her....drives me crazy. I'm not sure how God will stop her from racking up her credit cards on crazy expensive things she should know she can't afford, then because she has to pay off her cards, she can't afford to feed her kids. (Really, there are NO necessities being charged on these cards, the last bankruptcy trustee who saw her said she didn't need any of this stuff, and she's in trouble again.)
We've tried to help her a dozen different ways, but if she won't help herself at all? Oy. I wish she'd stop calling. It's sad and embarassing.
No one. Not even my mother. What does that mean?
The electrician to tell me he's on his way. We are having a lot of electrical problems.
The group services manager for our support group, saying how much we're missed as facilitators & asking whether I'd like to be on the board of directors. (I feel like Michael Corleone: just when I think I'm out, they're trying to drag me back in again...!)
I thanked her but politely pointed out that we only stopped facilitating LAST MONTH, & when I said we wanted a good long break from group responsibilities, this wasn't quite what we had in mind...!
mmmmm bacon, how I love thee.
The old friend I quietly 'broke-up' with a few years ago. To tell me her 39 yr old sis had dropped dead. She wants to get together again and I, sadly, do not. So much so that I had my mom go to the funeral for me.
sighs.
I agree - very creepy :/
Creepy.
No one calls me. I am strategically not in the phone book - because I don't use my husband's name, and the phone is listed in his name. I like it that way.
I am always happy if no one is calling, at least no one from my past disturbing the peace of my evening.
Lately, I live in "fear" of coincidentally walking into an ex-friend (not that there is any reason for being afraid, I'd just rather keep that chapter closed forever). Until a few weeks ago, I had no idea where he is living now, no contact details whatsoever and that was good. But now he got in touch with my parents, ugh. Now I know where he lives and works, and whenever I am in that city I cannot avoid thinking that any minute our paths might cross.
People keep calling me on my work phone and asking me to do stuff. Bastards.
only my mom calls, really. call me sometime. i'm not creepy. ;-)
Collection agencies.... so much fun.
Ah, my psychiatrist's secretary. I missed my appointment and owe the 150$ missed appointment fee. I hate hate the phone.
Ick. He sounds creepy. An ex contacted me recentlyish and basically wanted to have an affair. The funny thing is-while I cared deeply for him at the time- he couldn't have cared less about me then. He even remembers details of our relationship wrong- he thinks we had sex-and, um we didn't.
How weird is that? Thank goodness he defriended me on FB.
Ugh. I don't have another word than creepy either. But that CIA answer would have been good.
That is way beyond creepy. I'm disturbed for you. Hopefully he leaves you alone.
Good for you, Niobe, for thinking fast. I would have spilled some of my story. Must learn to tell stories to unwanted ex-friends. I love the pitbull story idea, pity that one didn't come to you sooner, but at least now you have it! Hope you don't need to use it.
No-one is calling me, and that's the way I like it too. Whenever the phone rings in the evening, I say, "That's for you," for my husband and fortunately 75% of the time I'm right. My evenings are precious. No, I'm just not a phone person. I regularly sit at home and let the phone ring, my dirty little secret.
It is very interesting for me to read this post. Thanx for it. I like such themes and anything that is connected to this matter. I definitely want to read a bit more soon.
No one has been calling me. But I did recently send a FB message to a former friend - just kind of wanting to connect up. She hasn't written back. She was a dickhead to me after my children died, I don't know why I should want to connect up, but I did. Maybe I just needed to know that she is still a dickhead.
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