The Phone Call

This happened about a year ago. True story.  We’re driving down a curvy mountain road, headed to a new business meeting in southwest Virginia. We’re talking about this and that and the client’s business when my cell phone rings. It’s my home number.

“Hello,” I say.

“Arrrghhh, snarrrl, Grrrrrr!” comes the reply.

“Hello?” I question. “Honey?”

“Grrrrr!” Click.

“What the heck was that?”  I thought out loud.

I try to dial home and there’s no answer. Now I’m concerned. I redial and redial. No answer. I try my wife’s cell phone. No answer. I try my kids’ cell phones; they’re at school, so no answer.

Has someone broken into my home? Is this my wife trying to tell me something? Is she hurt? Is one of the kids hurt and she’s so upset she can’t talk? My mind races and fills with horrible images. We drive down the road talking about this odd call when suddenly the cell rings again.

“Hello!” I yell. “Honey?”

“Arrrghh! Grrrrrr, Chomp, chomp, Errrrrr!” Click.

Now I’m scared. I try to call everyone I know. No one answers. I’m starting to get very nervous. Then I have no service for 20 minutes. When the bars on my screen ramp up again, I have a message from home. I check it.

“You have… one… message,” says the robotic woman. I frantically press One.

“Crunch, snarl, grrrrrr. Argh! Errrrrr!” Click. “End of message,” says the voice. I am speechless. I have everyone in the car listen to the message.

“That’s disturbing,” says Fred seriously.  “That person is upset.”

Jan listens to the message. “Sounds like Brett to me,” she says, referring to her husband.

An hour goes by. I can get no one to answer. We are walking into the meeting. Suddenly the phone rings again. Home.

“Hello,” I say, knowing the answer.

“Hi honey,” says my wife. “I got your messages.”

“What is going on?” I plead desperately. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she says, laughing. “But Rudy has the phone out on the deck and it’s chewed to shreds.”

Rudy, our deviously smart Jack Russell Terrorist, had managed to get the phone off the hook, take it out on the deck and proceed to chew on it, hitting the redial button now and then. My cell phone was the last number dialed, so I got his snarling, growling, chewing calls – until he finally managed to turn it into phone jerky.

Now when those annoying salespeople call, I let him talk to them. It seemed like a funny idea until we found out he’d joined a book club, voted Republican, bought some siding, insulted my mother-in-law and had a 2-hour conversation with my cousin from Alabama.