The Call

It was 4:30 am and the phone was ringing. I leaped out of bed with my heart pounding, but it turned out to be just someone outside at the call box, wanting to be let in. She said, "Lemme in, I forgot my key." Lightning pause while I digested this. I thought of the episode in Seinfeld where Elaine says, "I didn't know it was a jewel thief," and the other girl lisps, "That'th why there'th a buzzer!" and about reciprocal altruism, how the costs of helping her were low, and the benefits for her high. I felt irritated with people who aren't together, who have kind of a disorganized hedonistic lifestyle and come home at 4:30 am without their keys. On some level, I think I knew it was the girl next door, who's always blasting her music at all hours and keeping us up. All this happened in an instant. Then I said, "I'm sorry, I don't know you," and hung up.

It turned out it was her, because we heard her coming in a few minutes later - I guess someone else let her in. I haven't met her face-to-face but I hear her through the wall a lot. She's really loud, she always seems to be having these angry confrontations with people on the phone. She also likes to have the music blaring and TV on at the same time, in competition with one another. I probably would have let her in if she had apologized for calling at that hour. Or if she wasn't so loud all the time. The thing is that she knows which apartment she called, and now she's probably thinking black thoughts about me. But I don't care.

My husband rolled over in bed and laughed at me. "You're funny," he said. "You said, 'I don't know you.' It's like...'I don't even know who you are any more!'"