It started at 6:55 this morning. I was all cozy and out like a light. My phone rings. I don't recognize the number. I let it go to voicemail.
7:08, 7:20... 7:22... finally, I answer it after setting it to silent and having to listen to it continually vibrate.
"Hello?" I bark in a crinkly sleep-full voice.
Nothing.
"Hello?" I rasp again.
Nothing.
I hang up.
8:10- "Hello?!"
Nothing.
8:15- "Hello!??!!?"
Nothing.
8:30- "Hello... Hello?!... OK... This is the twentieth time you've called and this is getting FUCKING ridiculous... Please..."
"Hello?" An old woman's voice interrupts me.
"Um, hello!" I screech exasperated.
"I...I'm sorry... are... are you my son?" The woman's voice shakes out.
"I... I'm not... no... I'm sorry." I say settling down. I have this problem. When I hear soft old women voices, I think of my grandma. The one that once got lost in the middle of downtown Milwaukee and had to pull over and ask for help by a bunch of twenty-somethings that completely mocked her and sent her in the wrong direction as a prank. I think of being alone and old and confused and I think of how scary it would be trying to find my son and not sure how find my son if I didn't know how to find my son.
"I need help.."
"What's wrong!? Where are you?! What kind of help?" I ask nervously.
" I need help, please..."
"Where are you?!" By now I am throwing on clothes and grabbing a pad of paper in hopes she can give me an address."
Click.
She hangs up.
In a frantic pace, I start putting on shoes while redialing the number.
"Hello, Harmony Nursing Home, this is Sheryl."
"Oh... uh.. hi... I just got a phone call from someone who said she needed help..."
After ten minutes of explanation from Sheryl, I find out that the lady that had been calling me often sneaks in to the phone room and dials random numbers looking for her son who doesn't visit her anymore.
Today, she randomly chose mine.
I crawl back in to bed not able to sleep. With all the number combinations, she dialed mine. Of course, this could be coincidence. My number could have been close to her son's, you know, she was probably a number or two off.
I can't help but think about numbers and how we all eventually get old. It's the most beautifully scary thing about life. As much as you think you can prepare for it, you can never really be prepared.
But I can't help thinking about getting old... and being alone. I've always prided myself on being an individual and standing on my own. I never wanted to be too dependent on someone else that, if I ever lost him, I would be lost.
Maybe one is the wrong number.