The Call

At 1:05 am this morning, shortly after local bars close, our phone rang. I grabbed the receiver and grunted out a "'lo?". A strange voice asked for my wife. "Who is this?" The answer was garbled. Confused and not quite awake yet, I handed the phone to Jane. The call was a crank, and quite threatening and vulgar.

I did the *68 thing, but of course, the number had been blocked. This morning I called the Sheriff to see what could be done; nothing. One would think in this day of caller ID that there would be some recourse, but no, there really isn't. The only way to catch these people is if they screw up and forget to block their number or if they become too persistent.

I'm a light sleeper to begin with, and its so hard for me to get back to sleep once disturbed. And this really disturbed me. So the next hour of prime sleeping time was spent wondering who would have done such a thing. I was surprised at how many potential people I came up with after a little thought.

When I was 20, calls in the middle of the night were often good news, sometimes an invitation to a party or a lonely girlfriend. But when you're 40, a phone call in the middle of the night is never good news. Never.

Today's lesson: Bad news can wait till the morning.