The other night our phone rang.
As usual I didn’t answer it. I never answer the phone at our house. The reason I never answer the phone at our house is because the phone call is never for me. Face it, who would call me?
“Mike? Tony La Rusa here. Listen, we need a left-handed batter off the bench. Can you get to Florida later this month?”
For the record, Tony La Rusa has never called me and I’m beginning to think that he never will so I don’t answer the phone at our house when it rings.
Well, I should clarify something here. I don’t answer the phone when my wife is home. When my wife is not home I answer the phone all the time. Most of the time, when my wife is not home and I answer the phone, it’s my wife who is calling me. My wife will call me 10 times during one trip to the large, 24-hour retail store in our town. Often my wife will call me while she is pulling out of our garage.
I don’t understand that.
Wife: I’m going to the large, 24-hour retail store in our town. I’ll be right back.
Me: OK, bye.
Phone: Ring.
Me: ^%$&.
Because we have caller ID, I can always tell when my wife is calling me, which explains why I answer the phone like this: “WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
My wife hates it when I answer the phone like that. She says she would never do that to me. I tell my wife that I would never call her two seconds after I walk out of the door. My wife tells me that just maybe she’ll never call me again. I ask her if she will sign a notarized statement to that effect. My wife calls me a bad name.
When my wife is home, I never answer the phone. Unless, of course, my wife is busy doing whatever it is she does at our house. Then, when the phone rings, my wife will yell, from whatever part of the house she is in: “WILL YOU GET THAT?”
And I will yell back: “GET WHAT?” And my wife will yell: “THE PHONE, YOU MORON!”
But when I go to answer the phone, I will discover that I am unable to find any of the 27 phones that we have scattered all over our house. So the following exchange will take place while I frantically try to find one of our 59 phones.
RING.
“WILL YOU GET THAT PLEASE?”
“I CAN’T FIND A *&%$ PHONE!”
RING.
“ANSWER THE PHONE. IT MIGHT BE MY MOM!”
“I’M TRYING. I CAN’T FIND A *&%^$% OF A *^$%$ PHONE!”
RING.
“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”
RING.
BOOM.
“MIKE, DID YOU SHOOT THE PHONE AGAIN?”
The reason I can never find one the 107 phones in our house is because my wife has placed all of the phones in one central location. I don’t understand that either. What is the point in having 394 phones in our house if my wife is going to keep them all in the same place? My wife tells me that she doesn’t leave the phones in one place on purpose. She tells me that she will be on a phone and when she’s done she will put the phone down wherever she’s standing. After a while, she says, the phones somehow wind up in one place.
“That’s crazy,” I will say to my wife.
“I know,” my wife will say. Then she will walk out the door to go to the large, 24-hour retail store again.
And call me two seconds later.
Address correspondence to Mike Pound, c/o The Joplin Globe, P.O. Box 7, Joplin, MO 64802, or via e-mail at mpound@joplinglobe.com.
