And Now Grandmother Is About To Have Me Killed By A Guy She Wrongly Called Up Dozens Of Times

Recently -- well, I really don't know how long she's done this, I became aware of it right around the time she started panicking in August (which, by the way, was around the time my parents announced ... their announcement about The Store [that may be an out, but it's a very reasonable one, because I haven't been the same since either]) -- she does this thing where she calls someone, and unless she gets that person on the phone, she will hang up and try again.

And she does this half a dozen, maybe a dozen times. Grandmother is OCD like that. The other day I noticed while I was at a coffeeshop that she had called me nine times. This is on top of the other days where she has left several voicemails on my phone. It's the reason why I switched my voicemail to Google Voice. I thought that if she hears some automated voice instead of my greeting, she would be less likely to repeatedly call. Well, from the day at the coffeeshop, it seems like it doesn't work.

I could chalk it up to the ravings of an old woman who can't type the right number, has lost the inhibition to stop doing something if it's not getting her what she wants, and can't tell somebody why she continues to call the wrong number in English. No bid deal. Unless, of course, someone wants to kill me. Not Grandmother, me.

I woke up this morning to the sound of Grandmother in the dining room slowly tapping away at the phone. She needs to call somebody, again, and once again I hear her stop, push the button that probably turns it off, push the button that probably turns it back on, and push more buttons for the phone number. The only thing different was that she said "Sorry, wrong number" once or twice. But mercifully, she had the good sense to stop.

I finally had to get off the bed to see what the hell was going on. Maybe she wanted help dialing, or maybe I could do something for her so she wouldn't have to ask the person she's calling. But then her bedroom phone rings. She turns it on, listens for a second, then turns it off. She said that's been happening all morning. The phone rings again, only this time she hands it to me. I listen to nothing, so I turn it off.

Now we head to the dining room where the main phone is, and it rings. I pick it up. I have the following conversation (the other guy in italics):

"Hello?"

"Who is this?"

(pause) "Who is this?"

"This is (a name that is foreign to me, but he sounds Arab). You keep calling me and calling me. I told you never to call me again, you motherfucker. If you call me again, I will fucking shoot you, you understand me?" (I'm paraphrasing because a] I couldn't completely understand him and b] what I could comprehend I was, frankly scared shitless over, so I hung up)

I tried to tell Grandmother that what she was doing all this morning was calling the wrong number again and again and again, and the person on the other end of the line is pissed. And unfortunately for us, this isn't a person who wanted to be calm and try to clear things up; this is a person who, I guess, wanted to sleep in at 9 a.m. Sunday and got very angry at the stranger who wouldn't let him. All she said was "No!" I hope that's a "No, I didn't mean to call that guy" no, and not a "No, I didn't do that" no, because if it's the latter, well, it would make me feel like she should be put away.

That bastard called a couple more times to makes his point, although I didn't pick up. I would think the guy was crazy, except that I could totally see myself doing that to some deranged lady if I was furious. Meanwhile, I had Grandmother show me the number of the person she was trying to call. It's the guy I mock as "her son." He wrote down his number, but for some damn reason there were other digits written inbetween the numbers in pencil. I think she intermingled the small numbers in pencil with the big ones in pen and just kept repeating her mistake.

I also asked her to dial what she tried to dial that morning. It looked like she followed only the numbers in pen, but before she could hit the last one, I told her to stop calling, just in case he wrote down the wrong number or it changed or something. You can't be too cautious when the guy on the other end of the line vows to shoot you. I think she finally figured out the error in her ways and decided she would wait for "her son" to call her.

Then I wanted to make sure she was calling the right number, so I punched the numbers into my cell ... until I realized that if the number I'm calling is the one for that crazy, pissed off Arab dude, then he might know my personal number. Oh, shit. So I stopped the call a second after I sent it. Haven't gotten any calls from any strangers yet.

While this was bad, I think the guy overreacted a bit. Besides, this was something I could sweep under the rug, so I didn't think I needed to tell my parents because that would only give them more evidence to put her in a nursing home. But then during dinner in the afternoon (I told Father I had to go do something this evening and for some damn reason we're eating at 3 o'clock) he told me that Grandmother pulled this shit last night, calling this same asshole time and time again. When he intervened, the guy told him, "Who is this? Who are you?" So the cat's already out of the bag.

But I didn't know this. Apparently this dude said my name. I pay for the phone bill. We have privacy on our number ... well, I guess we used to have privacy on our number. I had this fucking situation a few months ago where I called up CenturyLink and I got snookered into what I thought was a good deal but turned out to be a bad one. My guess is that during the switch to my newer, thought-it-was-going-to-be-cheaper-but-turns-out-it-wasn't and back, we lost privacy. It wouldn't be that big of a deal. I mean, it's not as if we're calling complete strangers a dozen times in a row, causing them to flip out ... oh, wait, Grandmother did.

This prick is going to show up at my house and kill me. Just forewarning y'all.