HM's Phoney Faux Pas

Yesterday, on the way to Mastodon State Park, I had the most scathingly brilliant idea of calling OldLoverFromTheStreetLastNight to see why she hadn't called about bringing her young child to experience the joys of Poolio. When last we spoke, it was agreed that she would call one morning and come out in the afternoon. Since then, she has dropped off the face of Hillmomba.

I gave my phone to the #1 son, since he had only put in her home number. He said he could find her cell number in 'received calls'. He put in the number, and I called. After 5 or 6 rings, it said, "The party you are calling does not have a voice mailbox set up." Then I looked at the number I had called, and told the boy that did not look right. He said, "Oh!" and I knew he had made a mistake. He put in the right number. I tried it twice, but it went immediately to voice mail. The boy told me I had no signal. When I did, I said I would try her home number. I selected that entry my boy had programmed into the phone. It started ringing. I tried to turn up the volume, because my family has no respect for a momversation-in-progress. When I heard the phone was picked up, the conversation went a little something like this:

OldLoverFromTheStreetLastNight!
Hey!
What are you doing?
Not much. What have you been up to?
Wondering why you didn't call me last week to come swimming!
Oh. Well...I forgot. I've been busy tearing out my kitchen floor.
Why are you doing that?
We're selling the house.
What? Why are you selling the house? Is it because the neighbors are a$$holes?
Naw. I'm only going to be at HillbillyMom'sSchool one more year.
You're kidding! How come?
We're moving to southeast Missouri. I'm going to look down there.

All through this exchange, something didn't seem quite right. OldLoverFromTheStreetLastNight sounded really, really tired. I thought that maybe I had woken her up. But it was 10:00 a.m. I didn't think she could sleep that late with a 4-year-old in the house. I thought maybe she was mad at me and didn't really want to come out to frolic in Poolio. And what did she mean, she would only be at school one more year? She has been gone for two years, and has subbed a couple of times. Her child has called the neighbors 'a$holes' like her daddy does, but aside from them being suspects in the disappearance of Fred-the-cat, I didn't think they were a reason to move. And the house had just been remodeled a couple years ago.

Then, it dawned on me. I was not speaking to OldLoverFromTheStreetLastNight, but instead I was speaking to my Lower Basementia Buddy!!! How freakin' embarrassing!!!

Hey! I'm sorry! I thought you were OldLoverFromTheStreetLastNight! That's why I called you that at the beginning. My boy told me this was her number, and I dialed it.
Well, I wanted to know why I hadn't been invited out to swim!
I was just talking about that poolside just the other day. I told the #1 son, "LBB and Sonny could come down and swim. You boys could ride the 4-wheelers."
Sure. We'll do that sometime. I didn't remember telling you I would call last week, but I thought maybe I forgot, so I should just admit to it.
Let us know. We'll be home the rest of the summer.
Well, I'm in southeast Missouri now, so I'm going to let you go.
OK. We're on the way to Mastodon State Park. I'll call you later. If I get the right number.

I gave up on calling OldLoverFromTheStreetLastNight. What with my track record and all. It appears that when I went to adjust the volume, it popped the call up to the previous number on my list. The #1 son was off the hook. Never mind that he had actually given me the wrong number the time before. Thank goodness I wasn't calling anyone whose opinion matters to me.

That would have been really embarrassing.