Why I Hate Wrong Numbers

The Wife goes to sleep pretty early most nights — generally before 8:00.

Often, when she or someone else calls me on my cell phone, I can’t hear it, so I turn the volume up as loud as it will go. Only The Wife has a special ringtone; everyone else rings in with the Miami Vice theme because I think it’s a cool piece of music and it seems to induce smiles in people of my generation.

I try, as hard as I can, to remember to silence the phone at night when I put the it away to charge up. But I’m not perfect and forget to do this sometimes. And of course, only on the nights when I forget to do this does someone misdial the phone and call me at 9:00. So then I have to leap out of my chair and spill the computer dangerously on the floor, go running for the phone, and try to silence it as soon as I can.

Of course I never get there in time to prevent The Wife from waking up and asking me if I hate her. And then I feel guilty the rest of the night. Because someone I don’t know dialed a wrong number.

Burt Likko

Pseudonymous Portlander. Homebrewer. Atheist. Recovering litigator. Recovering Republican. Recovering Catholic. Recovering divorcé. Recovering Former Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. House Likko's Words: Scite Verum. Colite Iusticia. Vivere Con Gaudium.

One Comment

  1. That's why you need to get google voice. Among other things, you can set it to go straight to voicemail during hours you determine.

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