There are those moments in life when you feel fully helpless; helpless to the point that you feel you are the last man standing on Planet Earth. You’re helpless not because you don’t know what to do about whatever mess you’re in, or because your problem is yet without any solution and they are working in multiple labs all over the place to discover some potion or whatever to resolve it. You feel helpless because the problem might seem simple at its onset and yet could turn into one of your most frustrating problems of the last couple of decades. What am I talking about? (Incidentally that question could be legitimate as it could vicious. I mean it! These days so many of us pour tones of words and we ourselves seem to be out in the cold when asked to elaborate what the hell we’re saying. There is nothing to elaborate dummy!) I’m talking the seemingly trivial issue of wrong calls. How we’d have liked for it to be s ‘trivial’ so that we could save a little quality time of undisturbed tranquility every day. How much we’re indeed of that only He knows. These days most wrong calls are anything but trivial. You get the feel of such a scenario when you’re the target of barrages of wrong calls from those who don’t take “No.” for an answer for even the most bizarre reasons and also those who refuse that it is indeed the wrong number. It seems that few of us are ready to take the response, “Sorry, I think you called the wrong number.”
“Isn’t is number 0911……”
Yes it is. But there is no one by the name you mentioned in this place.”
“How could that happen?” And that goes on until you’re forced to hang up. Not very civilized!? Yes hanging on someone is nowhere near to civilization and also unfair. But then these days acting civilized and fairness are subjective. Who said so! Well I didn’t attribute that to any particular source, did I? But even say that these were the words of a researcher at some big institution and “Someone once said…” you surely wouldn’t have asked me the sources real identity. “Who is this someone you just quoted?” (It isn’t about the source; it is about the quote itself, buddy! That would be Plan B of the escape route.) Such a ‘cornering’ question would be much uncivilized and a couple of centuries late.
We’re so much submerged in this sea of distrust and never-ending suspicions making people believe what you tell them is a daunting task these days. In fact that would be mark the heavy line between the smart and the not smart. “How the hell does he manage to make so many people listen to what he says! I nearly have to chart out an operational plan of sorts before I try to make people believe that ‘how tall’ I was what they actually see and there was no AI interference at all! Hmm…. And this guy does it at the blink of an eye. Whoever says this world or nature is fair should grill themselves what actually they mean by that! Speaking of wrong calls I had this experience, the kind of experience you’d have liked to completely erase form your mind’s warehouse but still crops up in the most unexpected of times; like now when I’m scribbling this piece.
It was evening and to the best of my recollection I was either reading something or watching the Segall guy punch and kick the hell out of the whole town without a single fist coming close to anywhere close to his jaw! That guy’s films never stop amazing me!
My phone rings and it was a number I didn’t recognize; but then when you’re in the writing business there is nothing as ‘a number you don’t know. When the calls come in most are not known to you. In fact many of the numbers are unknown to you and there’s no story material about anything like ‘numbers you don’t know.’
“Hello!” I must have sounded the second nicest person on this side of Planet Earth. Thanks for the thumbs up! But then whether you sound nice or not you expect an equally nice and musical “Hello!” or something like that from the other side. That never came! An angry woman’s ballistic voice hit my ears with force hard to imagine. She directly descended into abusive language, none of which I’m afraid I could mention here and went on calling me all kinds of not-so-nice names I already knew and also never heard until that time. (Poor me never knew such words existed in the Amharic language!)
She accused me of betraying her and doing all kinds of evil things towards her with the infidelity thing taking center stage. The next day too she called and continued her abusive rants from where she left off. This time I muted the phone and waited until she had enough and hang up. The next couple of days she called umpteen times every each night but I knew much better than answering those calls. Days the calls became very I tried hard to interrupt her and tell her she has the wrong number but she refused to give me any opportunity do so.
A few days later one of those calls from a ‘number I didn’t know’ comes and I picked it up. To my surprise and perhaps utter shock it was the same woman. Before I decided to do whatever she practically begs me not to hang up. Now this must be a changed woman?
She says it was later that she learned she called the wrong person and hips on me apology after apology making me feels somewhat embarrassed. Finally she actually wept ad I had real hard time trying to cool her down and do things not very gentlemanly like proposing, “Look, how about meeting for tea and we can talk about it!” Never did that! I said things like “You don’t have to worry; such things happen,” sort of a dozen-a-dime \diplomatic’ approach.
A friend who recently got a call from a person he didn’t know wasn’t that lucky. The person he doesn’t know calls and threatens to beat him up unless he stopped what he was doing. Now the problem was that this was the type of guy who looks to the for the zebra crossing to cross to the other side even if there wasn’t any car in sight as far as he can see. Him doing things which drive others to threaten to beat him up! No way! He says he is drawing nearer to identifying the person and would confront him in person him as soon as he does. God help him!
Ephrem Endale
Contributer
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SUNDAY EDITION 10 DECEMBER 2023