There are certain awkwardnesses that
arise from dialing wrong phone numbers.
In my neck of the woods, phone
call confusions are multiplied in general for me anyway
because I am relatively new to the area,
everybody has an accent unusual to me,
and I am not yet familiar enough with
voices to distinguish among people whose
faces I cannot see. These mistakes are
further compounded by the regional
practice of neither callers nor
answerers identifying themselves to the
other, trusting that they know who it
is. This is a practice that I adopted
as my own, though I do not believe
anymore that it is a good
idea, largely because of what I am about
to tell you.
A
couple of years ago I had Thanksgiving
dinner with my next door neighbors. It
was a gargantuan Southern feast of baked
ham, turkey, stuffing (2 kinds, saged
bread cubes with oysters, and
cornbread), gravy, mashed potatoes,
candied yams, cranberry sauce, green
beans cooked in ham hocks, corn swimming
in butter, baked cinnamon autumn squash,
hot rolls, iced tea, pumpkin pie, pecan
pie, chocolate cake, banana pudding, and
pineapple
upside-down cake.
It was the
kind of meal that if you took just a
little bit of each thing you liked, your
plate was stacked and heavy to take into
the living room to find a place to sit,
balance everything without spilling
anything, and finally dig in. I couldn't
finish what was on my plate, and the
pineapple upside-down cake that had
looked so interesting to me among all
those desserts was positively nauseating
to look at by the time I finished what I
could.
It took perhaps an hour
and a half for everybody to eat all they
could. Some were groaning in actual
physical pain. The host husband, Wesley,
left and went to his mother's house to
say hello. Many went for walks along the
autumn waterfront to help the food
jostle down. I took Tums and sat in a
stupor with some other people in front
of a football game on TV that I had
absolutely no interest in. Nobody
talked; we just digested food. Slowly.
At about five o'clock, I was so overcome
by sleepiness that I went apologetically
to Jeanne, the hostess, begged her
forgiveness, and said I had to go home
and take a nap.
In no way
disheartened by my impolite behavior,
she begged me to wait just a minute and
soon came out bearing a huge cardboard
plate piled high with a meal exactly
like the one I had just eaten two hours
prior, covered with plastic. "Here," she
said. "This is for your dinner
tomorrow." To tell the truth, that food
did not look good at all to me, but I
thanked her effusively, took the food,
and walked home.
I slept through
the rest of the afternoon, through the
night (after taking more Tums), and woke
up reasonably alert early the next
morning.
I did some strenuous
furniture-shifting and sweeping and
general house-keeping until my stomach
began to growl about 10:30. I looked
wearily in the refrigerator. Hardly
anything was there except that enormous
plate of Thanksgiving left-overs. I
needed to go grocery shopping. I closed
the refrigerator door. Something. I
wanted something just beyond the reach
of thought.
A picture began to
form in my mind, a memory of the day
before.
The pineapple
upside-down cake.
It was just
what I wanted right then.
Jeanne
had said she had to work that day after
Thanksgiving, but Wesley was home. I
decided to call and ask.
I went
to the phone and dialed. The last four
digits of their phone number are 5501.
I dialed 5011.
This is
the conversation that ensued.
"Hello?" Male.
"Well,
good morning to you! Wasn't that a great
dinner we had yesterday?"
"Boy!
It sure was. Best damned Thanksgiving
cornbread stuffing I ever had."
"Well, I liked the other kind
better. But it was all good. Haven't
eaten that much in years."
"Me,
too. My stomach was hurting."
"Listen. The reason I'm calling
is to see if you still have some of that
pineapple upside-down cake left. I'd
sure like a piece for breakfast."
Silence. "What pineapple
upside-down cake?"
"Oh, that's
right! You went over to your Mom's
before we had dessert, though I don't
think many people had dessert, we were
all so full."
"Yeah, I did go out. Well, where could
it be? That sounds good."
"I
think she probably left it on the
table."
"Okay, wait a minute."
The phone clattered as he
dropped it on the counter. Pretty soon
he came back.
"Don't see no
pineapple upside-down cake on the table.
You sure we had any?"
"You sure
did. It was the only dessert I wanted,
but I was too full to eat any. Maybe she
put it in the refrigerator with the
other food."
"Yeah, maybe she
did. Wait a minute." I heard the sound
of the phone bang onto the counter
again. Pretty soon he was back.
"Ain't no pineapple upside-down
cake in the refrigerator either.
DAMMIT! I didn't get any!"
Only
then did I realize that I had not been
talking to Wesley. Wesley's voice did
not have that indignation-capability.
| "Uh, listen," I said,
embarrassed. "I think I called the wrong
number. Who is this?"
"Dwayne,"
came the agitated reply. "Who the hell
is THIS?"
"Well, this is Anne,
but I don't think we know each other."
Finally understanding, he
uttered a really awful expletive in
disgust and slammed the phone down.
| |