Rehearsed Phone Conversation

The phone rings. It is the one person whose call I have been waiting for. “Hello, it’s me.”

The nerve of this person that I would know that it was him. Does he think I have spent the last weeks pouncing on the ringing mobile phone on the chance that he would miss me and call even before January? Even if that was exactly what I did, it still does not excuse his presumptuousness. “Who’s this?” I ask in what I hope is a tone of absolute nonchalance, except that I sound exactly like someone who’s pretending not to recognize the voice on the line.

“It’s me,” he says. Aaaargh. The father of all presumptuousness! And I detect a faint touch of amusement in his voice which means that he knows exactly what I am up to. Now, I think he might just be openly mocking me.

And we have not gotten past the salutations.

“Oh, hi,” I say suggesting boredom, disinterest, apathy, you know. I consider yawning but that would be a bit too much.

“Is it a bad time to call?” he says and I almost scream, “NO!”

Fool. I just gave myself away again.

(Actual incident may never occur because it’s January 1 and he hasn’t called.)