J-Fed hates talking to me on the phone. I mean really hates it. It’s like he gets this annoyed tone in his voice the instant he realizes I’m on the other end. When my number comes up on his phone, the caller ID reads “The Nag” and the ringtone is Beethoven’s 5th.
Most of the time, he doesn’t even answer my calls. Nope, many a night I’ve dialed his number over and over a la Glenn Close style circa 1987. Yet, my calls go unanswered. In fact, if I want to get in touch with him, I have to call someone else and have them call him. THEN, and only then, will he answer. And if he’s feeling amicable and not generally pissed off at me, he might call me back.
However, if he calls me one time and I don’t answer the phone, he’ll leave me a curt message, blasting me for having a cell phone if I’m not going to answer it. That’s right. When it comes to phone calls, J-Fed is a one way street. He gets some sort of sick satisfaction over letting the phone ring and ring and ring when I call. It’s as if it’s his way of showing me he has “the power.”
I have more conversations with his voice mail than I have with him. Not to say that it’s much better when he answers.
“What? I’m busy. What do you need?” he’ll say curtly.
I’ll try to make the phone call as quick and painless as possible. And halfway into the conversation, he’ll grow silent.
“Is there something wrong?” I’ll ask, feeling guilty for some unknown reason.
“Do we have to go through this drill again? You call me. We look for something to say, and then when I get quiet you assume something is wrong. NOTHING IS WRONG! Now I need to get back to work if that’s all,” he’ll say.
I usually hang up in disgust, silently praying an electrical charge will zap him through the phone. No such luck. I spend the next two hours contemplating why he acts the way he does and why I dial his number time and time again. And then comes the call.
“Hey, hon. What are you doing?” he’ll coo ever-so-sweetly.
“I’m working. What’s up?” I’ll say, making no attempt to hide by contempt for him.
“Can you do me a favor? Can you….” Run to the bank. Call the insurance company. Collect some money. Make a hair appointment. Just fill in the blank. There’s always some little “favor” he needs done. And those are usually the times when he’s sickeningly sweet to me. And like a fool, I buy it hook, line and sinker every time.
But if I were to call J-Fed, forget about it. It’s as if I committed the cardinal sin, bothering the busy boy when he’s surfing the web in his workshop. So it totally cracks me up when I get the most insignificant phone calls from him while I’m busy at work, like the one today.
“Hello, what are you doing?” he said.
“I’m working. What are you doing?” I asked curiously.
“Oh, I’m looking at this poor little duckie. He’s cute and yellow and dead. The mama duck is standing over him and all his duck brother and sisters are looking at him,” J-Fed replied tenderly.
I looked around for a camera. Was he screwing with me? I was on a deadline and he was calling me to talk ducks. Needless to say, he once again had me at hello. I knew I should hang up, but it was like watching a car accident – I couldn’t look away.
“Are you sure he’s dead?” I said, committing myself to this meaningless conversation,
“Yes, his head is mushed down in the water. The little duckies are pecking at him. I think they’re trying to wake him up, and the mama duck doesn’t want to leave her little baby. All of the other chicks are that spotted color, but the dead chickie is yellow. It’s really sad,” he sighs. In the background, I hear him take a sip of a drink and a puff of a cigarette. He must have been taking the duckling’s death pretty hard. Poor J-Fed, he was a sucker for a lost cause.
“Do you think the mama duck is sad?” I asked him just to show my support for him in his time of need.
All I knew was that if he asked me to purchase a casket for the ugly duckling, I would just die. But the moment passed as quickly as it came.
“How am I supposed to know if she’s sad? Look, I’ve got to get back to work. I’m busy. Quit calling me,” he said before abruptly handing up on me.
Oh, the life of a woman married to Dr. J-Fed and Mr. Hyde.