Thursday, October 20, 2011

Dear Mystery Caller

Tom, how is it you only call when I'm not home and I only leave home once a week or so? That seems damn near statistically impossible given the extremity of my isolation. Hardly anybody knows I exist back here, so deep is my cover. I could die and not be missed for weeks. Yet only when I leave the house to go to the library and then straight to the grocery store do you call and leave a cryptic message with a phone number that's supposedly in Costa Rica so we can talk about "interesting things" (and god knows, I'd love nothing more). But when I call that number, some gringo with no hint of an accent, answers and says, he is "not Tom" and "no this is not Tom's number" and "no, Tom doesn't live here," and "no," he doesn't know Tom so stop calling. What's up with that? Why the bogus number? You've done it twice? I've redialed the caller ID number off the phone just in case I didn't hear your voice message correctly but I still get the same slightly impatient gringo with a voice so close to the same timbre as yours but without any of the warmth or musicality as yours. What is going on at that phone number? Call me at night. I'm always home then. I never go out after dark. If I don't answer then you can safely assume I am dead and stop calling.  Either that or I forgot to take the phone into the bathroom with me.

PS
I tweet. We could meet up there for a 140 character chat. Surely a with-it guy like you has a twitter account. If not twitter, how about Facebook? Send me an email. A blog comment? Anything. Just don't call during the daytime when I'm not at home and leave another bogus phone number please.