Poor Emily

I have been house sitting all this week, and I was rudely awoken early this morning by a string of phone calls from a desperate youth clearly on a mission to sort out her life. I managed to ignore the first two phone calls which were pulsating through the home, but decided it might be in my best interest to answer the third one, just in case it was the neighbors trying to get in contact with the person taking refuge in the house, to complain about my lack of snow shoveling etiquette. "Hello?" I asked. I tried to use my "confused as to why this person insisted on calling the house three times within 10 minutes" voice. "Oh Hello, this is Emily returning Brenda's phone call." I was so annoyed, let slightly relieved that this was all just a misunderstanding, and that I could now sleep peacefully knowing there wasn't a community witch hunt out for me. "You most definitely have the wrong number" I insisted, holding back my questions as to why she didn't get the hint the first two times that this might not be the right place. "Oh.. Is this the University of Calgary admissions office? I am returning Brenda's phone call." I instantly put two and two together to realize why this nut case had so much energy at this hour. I too placed all kinds of energized phone calls to the University some five years ago around this time, pestering the poor souls on the receiving end to enroll me. "I may have got 51% in Math 30, but my average is still 0.4% above the minimum requirement" is what I believe my argument was. I explained that I was not the admissions office at the University, and held back from telling her to turn and run from post-secondary, and start up a career at Blockbuster. Instead of apologizing, for electronically abusing my telephone lines, she quickly asked what number she had called instead. This is when I felt stupid, because I had no idea what number she had called.. all I knew was that she woke me up, and I was tired. "Umm to be honest I don't know this phone number" I casually explained, as if it wasn't weird that I didn't know my own phone number. I am pretty sure at this point paranoia set in, and poor Emily started to believe that she had been rejected from the University of Calgary, and this was their way of getting rid of her. She finally let me go, and I went back to sleep. Not 1 minute later the phone was ringing again, and I saw Emily's name on the caller ID. "Hello again" I muttered, this time in my livid voice. "Oh my gosh, did I call you again?" At this moment I wanted to tell her that she was hopeless to get into any University with her phone number comprehension and button pushing skills. I tossed the phone into my hamper in hopes my cloths would muffle the sounds of her likely imminent fifth phone call. Thankfully her brain started to function and she either dialed Brenda correctly, or simply came to the same conclusion in regards to her future in the academic world as I did.

I was further plagued by this Emily monster when I finished up my house sitting stint tonight, and upon unpacking my things at home, I found the family's portable phone stuffed into my hamper. Last time I stayed there I accidentally took home one of their TV remotes, so I am sure they will be completely weirded out when I have to drop by their home tomorrow and give back the other small appliance that I swiped. Its like I am a clepto with a nagging conscious, the perfect kind.


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