18:18 and unknown numbers

I knew better than to pick up the phone. The screen displayed "unknown number," and unknown numbers mean people I don't know. People I do not know do not deserve either the unexpected wrath of phone Kristin or the few minutes of phone nicety that I manage to eke as often as Smurfs are born, otherwise known as once in a blue moon. With any luck and clear skies, one might next catch a glimpse of it on December 31, 2009.

I hate talking the phone, the fact that I cannot hear very well and have to close my eyes, to turn off the TV and focus, seriously focus, on words that barely register, even with the phone turned up high. I hate the strange, almost painful vibrations in my left ear, which I swear mean that I'm going deaf. Most of all, I hate the sudden interruption in my life, changing gears, trying to figure out what to say on the fly.

While I relish spontaneity, I have to get my head around something before I enjoy it and I generally prefer preparation and order. My closet is organized by garment type and color. My Christmas list includes pivot tables, status and tracking information. Dollar amounts. Stores. The number of gifts per person, by family. Despite the fact that I smile before answering, I'd rather not answer at all unless it's my sister, and that's a different story altogether.

I didn't have a caller ID for years and wouldn't have known an unknown number from my office but these days I do. I recognize the almost-daily calls for Rent-A-Center, which apparently has my number or had my number or has a number something close to my own. I didn't even know there was a Rent-A-Center in the District or that so many people suffer from the sheer inability to dial a phone correctly.

The Rent-A-Center mistakes are peppered with infrequent calls from family and friends who try email, my cell phone and/or smoke signals once they realize they haven't talked to me since Christmas. Even then, they seldom call me at home.

For reason as unknown as the caller, though, I picked up last night. I picked up and smiled. I answered questions along a hollow, echoing connection between DC and the nether regions of outsourced customer service and telemarketing. Desperately, I wanted to ask, "Are you in India?" and "When was Holi?"

I could hear myself on a two-second delay, answering questions about fast food restaurants and advertising, how often I ate out, where and how. Eat in, drive through, carry out and delivery. Breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack. About dusty places from the recesses of my mind, places I hadn't visited in years, if ever, and the place where I bought my lunch.

In front of me, across the room, a paused picture faded to black and a logo bounced around the screen as I focused on understanding the questions. The accent. The man at the other end of the wireless to cable to wireless line pronounced the L's in tortilla.

"How many times in the past year have you eaten at California Tor-till-a?" he asked. "How many times in the past three months? The past month? How many times of the one time have you eaten there for breakfast? For lunch? For dinner? For snack? And of the one time you ate there, how many times were 'eat in'? And carry out? Drive through? Delivery?"

Before he hung up, he asked if he could call back with additional questions, and I said yes. I agreed. It felt like hours. Hours of painful, echoing, hard-to-interpret questions about food that I ate maybe once or twice a month.

I looked at the screen when I hung up. Eighteen minutes and eighteen seconds. The longest 18 minutes of my life, or so it felt at the time. I'm sure I've had longer, but future phone nicety would definitely have to wait until the end of 2009.


Tag: Telephones