Yes, it happened. It's scarey, but really the scariest thing about it is that the bogey man has your number, and that means someday he is going to use it.
You maybe thinking that I'm speaking in hyperbole or symbolically, but because nobody really knows who or what the bogey man is, in fact, I could be telling the truth, literally.
The facts behind the poetry are this: there is a man and he made sure the very mention of his name would cause people to cringe with discomfort, the chance that he would appear would make people change their plans, his existence in the world is an implied threat. What more do you want the bogey man to be? ...and we used to be friends. That is how the bogey man got my number.
When my phone rang I was doing my recent favorite self identifying activity: school work in the library. I had forgot to silence my phone, so the fact that it went off was already embarrassing. When I saw the bogey man's name come up my heart banged in my chest (just once or twice) and a vague feeling of nausea rose in my throat. Yes, o.k. I have the bogey man's phone number in my phone. How else am I gonna not answer when he calls.
I immediately hit "ignore", not only do I not want to talk to the bogey man, but I am certainly not going to let him interrupt my studies. When the message alarm beeped, I turned off the phone. He left a message. crap. Even if I hit "7" immediately to erase the call I will have to hear at least a few syllables of his voice. I could get a rash from less.
The message haunted me until I left the library, and sitting in my car I played the message. I winced as I dialed my voice mail and held my finger poised over the "7" key ready to erase if things got unpleasant.
Textured silence, distant voices, rumbling, maybe a restaurant, maybe a city street, after 30 seconds or so I hung up.
So I didn't have to hear a rant, and I just left wondering does he know the feelings he elicits? Is the bogey man sad? What made him so unpleasant? and how do I get him to lose my number?
I know exactly how it feels to look at your phone and feel a rush of emotion when you see that it's someone who you hate/love/fear and you don't know what to do, and then the awful anticipation of having to wait to find out what they said. You can build things up in your head to terrible proportions, and then it might turn out that the person simply butt dialed you, and all that worry was for nothing.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bogey-woman for me. I've deleted her name from my contacts twice now, but those digits seem branded into my brain for good.
ReplyDeleteHis name is gone from my phone, but I'll never forget the numbers. His face is deleted from facebook, but I'll never forget his face. The mix of emotions when just the name is mentioned is strange, ranging from wanting to fight for the friendship we once had and wanting to punch him in the face for what happened when "just friends" crossed the line.
ReplyDeleteWonderful.
I completely get this! It's sort of double edge sword, we don't want to hear from our bogey-men (or women) but then we have keep them in our contact list in order to ignore them and push them out of our lives. God forbid they leave a message, listening to it is the same feeling I get when anticipating a shot. You don't know what's coming at you so you wince and pray it doesn't hurt as much as you think it will.
ReplyDelete