Why I Use Call Display
Zoe did a post about a stalker, which reminded me of a time years ago when I was plagued by an obscene phone caller. This was in the days before call display, so I had no way of knowing who my harrasser was.
I suspect he was the kind of person who chose victims at random, from the phone book. I was newly married to my first husband, and we lived in an apartment; our number was listed under his first initial and last name, so the caller may have guessed that the number belonged to a single female. He was wrong, but, as luck would have it, the first time this pervert called, at around 7 am on a Saturday, my ex was not home. His mother had passed away a month or so earlier, and he was travelling with his nephew and a couple of friends to the town where she had lived, to remove some appliances and furniture from her home. They were going to have breakfast together at a highway restaurant, and would have probably been payin their tab right around the time the phone rang.
Now my ex loved to play pranks, and he would often phone someone (including me) using a phoney voice and/or accent and make a fool/basket case/emotional wreck out of his victim. So when I groggily answered the phone and was asked what kind of underwear I was wearing, I thought, oh no, mister, you aren't gonna get me this time, and I saucily answered that I wasn't wearin any. This excited my caller, and his questions became increasingly crude and rude. I, believing my spouse and his buddies were havin a big laugh at my expense, continued to coolly give suggestive and seductive responses.
Grrrrrrrrrrreat.
Finally, I grew tired and irritated by this game and demanded to know why he was really calling. The caller responded by sayin, someone told me he thought you would pose for me in your underwear. I said ha ha, that won't work because I told you, I don't wear underwear. This cat and mouse game went on for some time (this guy must've thought he'd found himself a real live one) and I got crankier and crankier until I ended up shouting that this was really creepy and it wasn't funny any more, and what if this were for real? Now why did you call, and if you don't tell me, this conversation is over, I'm hanging up.
He apologized.
Still unable to elicit from him a satisfactory reason for his call, I hung up. I waited for a call back from my husband, him laughin and enjoying his joke, but it never came. I steamed all day long. Boy, was he gonna get it when he came home.
My husband got back late that night, tired and emotionally spent. I was ready for him, oh you bet. I went up one side of him and down the other, and his wide-eyed protestations of innocence only fuelled my wrath even more. Then slowly, ever-so-slowly, realization crept into my mind:
He truly had not been the caller. As I played back the mental tape of some of the lascivious things I had said, I felt fear, embarrassment and shame flooding over me.
Oh.
My.
Gosh.
Did I get more calls from Mr. Pervert? Oh, you betcha.
When the phone rang during the wee hours (usually it was between 1 and 3 am), I was always the one who answered, because the clock radio/telephone combo we had was on my nightstand. Our apartment had only a window air conditioner, which was way down the hall from our bedroom, so my ex, who could not tolerate the summer heat at nighttime, would often sleep on the couch right under the blaring a/c unit. He couldn't even
hear the phone ring from there.
I used to coach volleyball, so one day I brought one of my coach's whistles home and put it in the top drawer of my nightstand. The next time Mr. Underpants called at 2 am and I crossly asked what the h-e-double hockey sticks he wanted, he said he wanted to talk. I said, okay then, listen to this....and I blew that whistle so hard that it nearly made my husband wet the couch at the other end of our apartment.
That's the last time I ever heard from my obscene phone caller. I bet his ears are still ringin.
To this day, I am deeply suspicious of any man I meet who says huh.
