In my apartment, the buzzer to let people in has to be connected to a phone line. There is no intercom panel near our apartment's front door, no buttons to hold down, or awkward radio-switching from "listen" to "talk" while shouting into a wall-mounted piece of plastic. I'm not bragging mind you; it sometimes blows. For the first few weeks after we moved in we had to physically attend to our visitors five floors down — like fucking slaves.
My roommate and I (yes, I have a roommate, and no, he is not a emotionally volatile misanthrope like me, and yes, we are related, and yes, he has a high paying job, and no, I don't know what I am doing with my life yet, enough of the questions, would you please?) having fully embraced the future, do not have a land line. (That's phone-you-can't-fit-in-your-pocket for the Luddites reading.) We are both encumbered with BlackBerrys that allow (nay, force) us to prattle on like douche bags in silk suits about short selling, or convoluted legal doctrine, or how hard it is to find good help. Well, I just use mine to play BrickBreaker, but I digress.
The solution to the buzzing problem was to forward all calls to my old cell phone: a sturdy Nokia that I purchased from a sketchy Russian I met on Craig's List. Though I was reluctant to relegate my trusty phone to such a pedestrian task, sacrifices must be made. Now my old cell phone sits virtually dormant (on our virtually dormant TV) waiting for a visitor's ring like a tiny electronic doorman.
(Incidentally, there is a photograph on the background of my phone that I have taken to referring as "the doorman". He is a tabletop creation, two-dimensional for all intents and purposes, made of the rolled-up remnants of a coaster shredded by a combination of frustration and caffeine withdrawal. He looks dapper in his almost-fedora and necktie, but he is trapped for all time in the guts of my trusty Russian phone, doomed to a life of service as a smiling digital concierge.)
(But I digress.)
I brought the phone into my room last night because I had to receive a text message from Fido because — God damn this is a long explanation, fuck it.
The phone rang.
We had a visitor downstairs it seemed. I answered it.
"Y'ello?"
"Hello?" Replied a girl's voice.
"Hello?" I repeated back.
"Hello?" Replied the voice again. She sounded familiar. And then she asked, "who is this?"
"Who is this?"
I should pause here to mention: in an attempt to ensure that my roommate and I were at the top of the list of tenants names (displayed proudly in/on the lobby keypad/computer/thingie) we selected an alliterative alias of "Abraham Aardvark" to represent us. This appears as:
A.AARDVARK
on the panel in the lobby. So I've had the "who-is-this" conversation a few times before; many a drunkard has solicited us for entry — most probably due to our up-most position and our demonstrated love of the ant-bear. (And for the record, we always let them in.)
Assuming this was just another drunk girl, I prepared to unleash a bout of my usual date-rapier wit, but I was mistaken. Sort of.
"It's Celica."
It wasn't a drunken visitor, but a drunken dialer. A long distance misdial of my old number; a number I thought she had long since forgotten. I was speechless.
In a moment of confusion -- and wishful thinking -- I buzzed her in. But she was wasted, and all the way in Louisville, KY.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Like, you know, whatever.