Hey, family, friends, co-workers: When you find yourself sitting arounud the house in the middle of the night, watching reruns of Gilligans Island, drinking cheap screwtop wine right out of the bottle, don’t get all melancholy for “your old college pal” and dial the phone. Aunt Kate, every time you call me at four in the morning because you forgot to take your medicine and you think it’s four in the afternoon, I think uncle Ted has died and I panic. And Sis, if you call me at 9:30, I can only assume you’ve had an accident and need to be rescued from the hospital. To any member of the wife’s family: Calling at 3 AM does not work. I know, you’re an hour ahead of us; that STILL makes it 2 AM here. If I hear “it’s earlier there” one more time at 11:00 at night, I’m going to reach through the phone and strangle someone.
What happened to the common courtesy of calling people during normal hours? As far as I’m concerned, if you need me, if you have to call me, great, But if you call at 11:50 PM to say “I just wondered what you were doing” the answer is “sleeping” you idiots. Do you all have some kind of alarm that notifies you when Ms Rubin and I have recently finished having sex and have just snuggled in for the nappy time portion of the evening? do you always have to call me at 10:30 to see “if you decided what we were going to do this christmas” (in JUNE). Is there any reason why you couldn’t call me at 6:30? oh, you were busy? well lissenup, you dipstick. I’M BUSY NOW! Leave Me Alone. Oh, you couldn’t get through because I was online. So did you bother to call my cellphone? my wife’s cellphone? the pager? the OTHER PHONE NUMBER? No?
Sheesh. Sorry this is lame. Would have been more full of vitriol if I’d have been able to post it the other night.
I used to feel a bit like Billy Rubin when friends called after 1 AM to chat, forgetting (or worse – not caring) that I had an early work schedule. Then I discovered phones with ringers that shut off, and answering machines. Life has been wonderful since then.
This is the same problem as the telemarketers, the correct answer is NOT to disconnect your phone, or send it to an answering machine, or turn the ringer off. God forbid there’s an ACTUAL emergency or something, I’d like my phone to be functional, thankyouverymuch.
The correct answer is for assholes to not call at ridiculous hours.
My suggestion is to be terribly rude to people who call at that hour, call them “fucking assholes” or some other such insult and hang up right away (use a sleepy voice). When you talk to them at another time, just say “I don’t even remember you calling, I must have been sleeping!” Then express shock and horror at the rudeness you displayed and apologize profusely.
My own mother calls late (between 10 and 11 or so at night) and she’s in the same time zone! I love her dearly but sometimes I just let the answering machine earn its keep…
Thanks, Cheesesteak, my point exactly; one needs the phone to be on during odd hours, for the times when my mom had an allergic reaction to meds and needed to be taken to the emergency room, or someone’s car is stalled along the road somewhere, or that sort of emergency. Which happens in my household at least once a month.
I would love to sound groggy and be rude, but everyone that knows me knows the phone brings me to instant alertness, after which I have difficulty falling back to sleep. Hence the issue. Actually I try to explain that at this time most people are sleeping, but most callers aren’t deterred by that. Also, we tried caller ID and privacy manager, but they only had the effect of blocking my own phone calls home from places on the road.
I’ve always lived by the idea that “… when the phone rings after 11 at night, it’s never GOOD news …”
So, I try to live up to the other end of that - in other words, I can’t remember the last time I even DIALED a phone after 8:30 PM or so - or for that matter, before 8:30 AM.
Unless someone tells you, specifically, “call me whenever you get in” then I don’t bother people after a reasonable hour - and I appreciate it when my friends and family don’t either.
What’s really fun is when your phone rings at 3:30 on a Sunday morning, waking you out of a sound, sound sleep only to be someone VERY drunk and VERY disoriented who has button-mashed the keypad on a payphone someplace and gotten your phone as a WRONG NUMBER!
