Bitchy Micro Story - Fiction with attitude

WHO'S CALLING?

Who’s calling and hanging up on me? Last night, the first crank call came in, just as I reached that pleasing limbo state between consciousness and sleep—I was so rattled! Then this morning another call came in at the crucial moment, just as I prepared to flip my eggs over-easy, causing me to ruin them. The yolks were hard and I like them runny. The third time, the culprit called me while I was driving in my car, and I broke the new law to answer. I kept on saying hello, hello, hello, but nobody answered, just air. And the call had come from one of those restricted numbers—how irritating. Good thing some diligent cop eager to write a ticket didn’t spot me using my cell phone.

Maybe it’s that guy I met at that party the other night. But no, that can’t be, we obviously hit it off. I mean, he said I was cute as a button and asked for my number. Why on earth would he go through all the trouble of calling, just to hang up on me?

Or, it could be that horrible Chelsea Topper, the woman I’ve repeatedly snubbed, the one that recently joined my walking group. Gosh but she’s irritating. Asking me to tag along with her to functions I’m not the least bit interested in, always pestering me to tell her where I buy my running outfits, and how much I paid. Tacky questions that I give her the wrong answers to. I don’t want to show up and find that frumpy woman wearing the same joggers as me, no way!

The caller might be Victoria Smythe from work. I’m sure she’s more than a little annoyed with me because I continue to outshine her on a daily basis. And since she’s my boss and has access to my telephone numbers that would explain a lot. It hasn’t escaped my attention how totally jealous Vic is about all the attention the other people in the office give me because they prefer my company to hers. I’m always invited out for lunch and for drinks after hours, while she sits alone at her computer doing God only knows what.

My sister is perfectly capable of this kind of behavior too. When I get right down to it, I’m sure that she wouldn’t be above picking up the phone and dialing my number and hanging up just for the heck of it. In order to drive me crazy. I’ve always been a thorn in her side, ever since I was born. It’s not my fault that I turned out to be four inches taller, and twenty-five pounds thinner than she is. And my son’s an entertainment lawyer with a lovely high-rise condo in Century City, while her children are a pair of losers with a capital L. Her daughter is practically a crack whore out in Yucca Valley, and her son mows lawns for a living out in Pacoima. No wonder she’s bitter.

I don’t know what I’m going to do if this keeps up, I really don’t. It’s a terrible thing answering that ring and meeting total silence on the other end of the line, a terrible, terrible thing. I don’t do well with silence. I’ve never been able to tolerate a quiet house. Why, I even leave the radio playing at night because it’s too scary without some kind of noise in the background besides the crickets chirping and the furnace going on and off and water pipes banging and clanging.

Whoever is making these calls is diabolical, not a good person at all. They’re trying to throw me off, trying to scare me. Well it’ll take a lot more that a few hang up calls to freak me out, I can tell you that. A woman living alone is such a target, and I am middle aged, but extremely attractive and it’s just not funny at all, the idea that someone is having a good old time at my expense. I suppose I could change my numbers. That would be a big pain in the butt, why should I? I do not intend on giving this prankster the satisfaction. I just won’t.

The next time the phone rings I’m going to scream into the receiver at the top of my lungs. That’ll fix them!

All Rights Reserved ©2009 by Elizabeth Bradley