867-5309 Kari

Okay, stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Nevermind, just keep it to yourself, since I’m sure somebody, somewhere has already blogged to great extent about my impending topic for today, but I don’t care. Get in your car, drive to a field, step out on to the grass and sit on it.

Anyway…the thing I have decided I hate about Caller ID is that it can create a false sense of excitement. Let me explain. I generally only answer my cell phone when I recognize the person calling, because I tend to get sales calls that I don’t want to waste minutes on. It’s not a fool-proof system obviously, but normally if the person calling is someone I want to talk to, they will leave a message. But there are times when I don’t recognize the number, but it isn’t an 800, 888, 866 number and I get overly curious as to who is calling. I still don’t generally answer the phone, but I may do a reverse look-up to see where the call is coming from.

See, I have an overactive imagination, and I start going through the possibilities of who this unidentified caller (uc for short) could be. Maybe it’s a friend I haven’t talked to in so long they jumped the state without my knowledge, maybe it’s a friend of my parents who wants to offer me an exciting job in underwater hotel management, or maybe, just maybe, it’s a secret admirer. He has been pining from afar, but just has finally gotten up the courage to ask a friend of a friend for my number so that he can profess his deepest feelings and secrets to me, despite never having spoken to me before…actually, that’s kind of creepy. Even in my fantasies I set myself up with weirdos. *Sigh*

Sometimes, like today, after the same phone number has popped three times on my phone with no message (after I have looked up the number and found it’s based out of a state in which I do actually know someone), I break down and let my need to satisfy my curiosity win out over my better judgment. My heart races, my hands clam up and my voice shakes ever so slightly as I pick up the phone and say, “Hello, this is Kari.” And the caller tries to offer me a free weekend getaway in exchange for sitting through a sales presentation for a timeshare where the yearly maintenance fees cost than my car. To which I say, “I’m sorry, I’m not interested.” And the caller asks how old I am and if there might be a Mr. or Mrs. Minor that they could talk to instead, because apparently I’m not qualified to speak for the household that “we” are not interested. (I hate sounding like a five year old with a helium buzz.) After getting so worked up, the payoff is more than a little annoying and the more times this scenario occurs, the more irritable I get about caller id and it’s lack of interference with my love life.

Still, I must admit that caller id is by far a lesser offender than the call screening service operated by mom back in high school. True story: One afternoon my mom comes jogging up the stairs with the cordless, enters my room giggling like a school girl and whispers excitedly, “Kari…it’s a boy!!” Well, as it turned out, that “boy” was an Army recruiter, but it’s much the same thing, right?


On a side note I have decided that I should stop answering the phone after eating ice – it numbs my tongue and I end up sounding like I just had minor oral surgery and washed it down with a bottle of Boone’s. Not so cute during work hours. Or ever for that matter.