Leaning Over and Screaming, "Hello??!!"

Imagine this guy driving a truck instead of a recliner.

My phone rang this morning with a 590 prefix, which I thought was my friend Ryan's phone but didn't stop to wonder why it didn't say "Ryan." It stopped ringing after half a ring so I figured he dropped his phone in his morning peanut butter sandwich or something and would call back. Sure enough, a few seconds later, the phone rang again. I picked it up. I said, "Hello?" expecting to hear Ryan's droll imitation of Uncle Leo's "Hulllloh" from Seinfeld on the other end.

No. I heard arguing. On talk radio. The reason it took me so long to respond the first time was because I couldn't figure out if I was on hold and this was someone's hold "music" or if say, my Dad, who listens to talk radio, was calling me from yet another cell phone because the Firemen's Ball people had started asking him for money again and had changed his number...again and I didn't recognize his number. I just didn't know. Plus, I'd had dreams last night about people talking to me so I was still scratching my head over that and by the time I realized it was some dork pocket calling me twice, mind you, while he was driving and I was just desperate to have them answer for some reason and started yelling, "Hello" even though I know this never works. It never does. Following is the transcript of two humans in a moment of heightened dorkdom (yes, one of them is me) and one who just plain should be flogged.

"...these two ladies came and knocked on the door and said we couldn't have the kids in the van and that they were going to call the police and we explained to the police the risks *laughter* benefits of having the kids stay in the van and watch a movie instead of going in the church and having nothing to do and we didn't feel they were in any inherent danger and so they wrote us up and said we were in family crisis and of course we went to court and everybody that met us along the way were very impressed with us-"

"Hello?" Blink. Blink.

"and what good parents we were and how alert our children were and fun-loving and so forth-"

"Hell-o??"

"and our name is still on the list of child neglect. And we also mentor and we are now unable to mentor because of our names being on this list which I find very ironic. [Enter Mike Rosen] I'm going to put you on hold for a sec because of the static. It seems to me, that, that the original intent of these types of laws-"

"HELLO?"

"were to deal with parents who, on a hot summer day, would leave their child in a car, say an 18 month old, where it might be very, very hot and they might go in shopping for twenty minutes and-"

"HELLLOOO!!!!"

"that would be neglectful but the situation you describe doesn't strike me as a person being"

Click.

Beep Boop Boop Beep Boop *dialing* You get the idea.

"Hello?"

"Hi. Who is This?"

"Bill."

"Hi Bill! This is Wendy. You called me twice on your phone."

"Uh, no. No, I don't believe I did that. No."

"Yes, it's actually kind of funny. I think what happened is you pocket dialed me. You were listening to talk radio?"

"Uh, yes. I, uh, I don't know how I dialed your phone."

"Well it happens. Again, it's just funny and I thought maybe if your phone had a lock function you might want to utilize it or something. But I thought you might want to know what your phone was doing."

"Okay, uh. *cough*"

"Have a nice day, Bill!"

"You too!"

Click.

Just for the record the man on the radio is a fucking idiot and so is Mike Rosen for validating him. I don't care if the core temperature in a car or, say, van, is set to a cool , breezy 72 degrees, you should never leave your children in your car. Clearly, these people drive the Popemobile which leaves their children invincible to people who lure and kidnap children away from their parents while they are inside a church doing things that their family is clearly involved in and apparently they think is not important to involve the kids in. Not that I'm saying everyone should run inside a church. However, if you are, like this doofus and his wife, involved in a church, either take them the hell inside the church or leave them at home with a sitter. Instead, you plop the kids in front of a DVD player in the car as the babysitter just like all good mentors do and then cry when you get put on a list as being negligent and can't put other people's children in front of a television and call it mentoring. Does anyone remember Teddy Ruxpin the robotic babysitter? What the fuck was that?

Oh, and Mr. Mentor. Why don't you call up Alanis Morrissette and ask her what the word ironic means because I'm pretty sure the entire universe has told her by now and it's burned into her skull and she'll never forget it after putting out that song that should have been called "Unfortunate Events That Happened." In case you have a Mentoring MySpace, though, here's how you should properly use the word "ironic," although you should know that you are pictured right next to the definition of it with the sentence, "It is ironic that this man considers himself a mentor." Oh what? Sorry Alanis. You're right. That's under "Unfortunate Events." Thanks.

Irony is a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is an incongruity or discordance between what a speaker or a writer says and what he or she means, or is generally understood.

In modern usage it can also refer to particularly striking examples of incongruities observed in everyday life between what was intended or said and what actually happened.

HELLO!