Did I wake you? Of course you did
With the advent of cellphones and the end of land lines, I’ve found myself somewhat in a quandary.
When I was a kid, if the phone rang in the middle of the night, someone had to fly downstairs and grab it. It would take many, many rings before one of us would wake up enough and be bothered enough to get out of bed, unless someone was fighting with a boyfriend and was terrified my father would answer it first.
When we got all fancy and had an upstairs extension put in, it shortened the trip. I solved the Dad problem by having my own line put in, so I could fight with my boyfriends whenever I wanted without my father knowing. Looking back, I should have let him handle those phone calls and saved myself a lot of heartache.
I’d always had a phone in the bedroom, but I soon learned — as we all do — that a call in the night is rarely a good thing. I startle so easily if you open a beer near me, I think I’ve been shot. A phone jangling me out of my sleep means the night is done.
When you have sick parents, you don’t have the option of turning off the ringer. When Mom died, I’ll never forget doing just that, feeling relieved and guilty. It was a temporary reprieve; when the boys started being out at night, the phone, of course, had to go back on.
Today, I just have a cellphone. I’d love not to have it beside the bed at night, but I’m doing that reverse thing where now I’m thinking what if I have to make a call instead of duck one? I solved the hassle of getting bugged by wrong numbers by only having a (very curated) list of family and friends who can break through the 12-hour window I instituted as my off-limits zone.
That didn’t stop my sister Gilly, who rises with the sun, from texting me at 7 a.m. one day. I barked at her later, and my contact info in her phone now says “Rainey DO NOT CALL BEFORE 9.”
I would like someone to explain to me the following phenomenon: whenever someone calls and wakes you up, why are you supposed to insist that they didn’t?
In every movie and every television show, no matter when the phone rings, the sleeping person insists to the caller that of course, they didn’t wake them.
If you call me at midnight and ask if you woke me up, my reply in the affirmative will be wrapped in a cocoon of swear words.
If someone sounds sleepy when you call them, it’s not their job to reassure you they are already awake and be embarrassed that they’re not.
Everyone has different sleep patterns — and as I get older, that often means none at all. I’m not gonna feel guilty for being asleep at 8 a.m. if I didn’t get to sleep until 6.
Let’s remind the world that getting some sleep — whenever that may be — is not lazy.
It is on me to turn off my phone or not answer it; it’s not on me to pretend my superpower is never needing sleep.
The phishers and scammers, of course, have found a way to break through my nighttime block.
My phone will ping with a text at three in the morning and my Mom brain dives into disaster mode.
After a few of these garbage notifications, I got smart.
My kids will never text me from a police station, an ER, or by the side of the road — they will call me.
Bad news travels fast, I always assure people.
It’s probably not going to be by text.