Monday, December 13, 2004

Can You Phone In a Curse?

I got home at 4:20am late Saturday night/early Sunday morning (depending on if you're an optimist or a pessimist) and managed to sleepwalk through my sleep-prep routine and tumble into bed 15 minutes later. Around 4:45 am, the phone started ringing.

I don't know about you guys, but for me, when the phone rings at an unnatural hour, I assume something very bad has happened and someone is calling me to tell me who died. So I always pick it up, even if only by instinct, despite my brain not being in any way awake.

Hello?

No answer. I hang up, wondering if maybe I had merely imagined the phone ringing in my sleep-deprived delerium. I throw down the phone into the corner and am asleep before my face hits the pillow, when the phone starts ringing again.

I have to scramble across the floor to pick it up.

Hello?

Silence.

Hello?????

I hang up, definitely irritated. I don't have caller ID on the phone in my bedroom, and I know that I should go to the kitchen to check the caller ID there, but I don't have the energy so I go back to sleep.

A few minutes later, the phone is ringing again and I let it ring, trying to incorporate it into my dream. It goes silent, and then starts ringing again. I'm seriously peeved at this point. I pick it up.

Who is this???

(I really wanted to say, who the FUCK is this, but even totally pissed off at 5 in the morning, I can't help but be polite)

there's silence, and then someone rattles off something brief in a foreign language, then goes silent. I couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman.

I ask again, Who is this?

There's silence, and then they rattle off something brief in a foreign langauge again, followed by silence.

I ask again, Who is this?

No answer.

We both stay on the line for a while, neither person saying anything, but neither person hanging up. Finally, I've had it so I hang up, but a few moments later, the phone starts ringing again. I ignore it, letting it go to the machine.

What the hell is that??? If it's a wrong number from someone in a foreign country, they're wasting a lot of money misdialing someone who is obviously not the person they're looking for, as evidenced when my answering machine and I consistently answered.

Then I started worrying, that maybe someone was phoning in a voodoo curse on me.