Home Alone, a Ringing Phone and an Unknown Ring-Tone

 Once the bus whisks my twins off to Kindergarten, I am home alone for most of the afternoon - well unless you count Riley and Brick. 

Brick the Beta

Riley

Usually the time passes uneventful and quickly (as we have established here on a previous post that I am the unofficial queen of time wasting.)

Yes, uneventful and quickly … until one afternoon, as I was home alone when I heard a phone ringing! It was actually a friend calling to chat.  But then, another phone was ringing! And that turned out to be an unknown number on my cell phone.  I didn’t answer it because this number had called two other times …and had not left a message - Mysterious.  And then, the call waiting beeped in my ear!  It was my husband asking me to do some inane chore outside that I’d rather he do (but that’s a whole other post.)  Needless to say, I hung up quickly with him and the house went silent … until … there was another ringing phone … with an unknown ring-tone!  Dun-dun-dahhh!

It wasn’t the house phone.  It wasn’t my cell phone.  There was a phone ringing somewhere in the house and I WAS HOME ALONE!  (I wish you could have seen my older son’s face as I told him this story –the way he was looking at me was priceless!)  Anyway, where was I?

…and I was home alone with the ringing phone with an unknown ring-tone!  I walked down the hallway …

…followed the ringing into my daughter’s bedroom … 

… on her desk, sat an old cell phone …

The phone had been disconnected, as in no longer in use, as in unable to send or receive calls, as in not supposed to be ringing when no one was near it, as in What the hell is happening?, as in Did I mention I was home alone?

Ring, ring, ring.  Ring, ring, ring.  Should I answer it?  Who could be calling?  Crazy thoughts zipped through my head.  Obviously, it was someone trying to contact me from the other side.  I’ve watched enough episodes of the Long Island Medium to know that it was possible.

Cautiously I approached the phone.  In the long-arm stance of someone reaching for something very undesirable, I picked up the phone.  I was poised to say, “Hello.”  I was ready to speak with the “other side”.

And … and … and … I read the display … which said,

“Alarm set 3:30 p.m.”

I would like to take a moment, right here and now, to thank my parents who gave my children their old phones when they upgraded to smart phones last month.  These phones have provided hours and hours of “I-can-barely-think-straight or hear-my-own-thoughts” entertainment, including my daughter unwittingly setting the phone’s alarm when I was…

HOME ALONE!