Remember how good your memory used to be before the advent of cellphones? I recall sitting up in my bedroom in front of my tiny 15” TV with my cordless phone, dialing friend upon friend from memory. I knew personal numbers, parents’ numbers, moms’ and dads’ numbers separately if they were divorced, grandparents’ numbers, radio stations’ numbers, school numbers, work numbers, the local police station’s number, and on and on.
After having a cellphone for about ten years, I now know:
1) My dad’s cell and home numbers
2) My grandmother’s home number
3) Kamran’s cell number
4) My best friend, Tracey’s, cell number
5) Tracey’s parents’ home number (left over from junior high!)
6) My great-aunt and -uncle’s home number
7) Carmel car service’s number (because you never know when you’ll need a ride home, and also because it’s literally all 6s)
I rely on my BlackBerry’s memory for everything else, though I do have some vague ideas about what other people’s phone numbers are. Anyone calling from Manhattan’s 212 area code is likely a restaurant confirming a reservation. I know that a number with a bunch of 2s and 8s in it is my friend Katie. And I know that a number beginning in 347 is likely my roommate, or “Landlord”, as he likes to be known.
So I actually answered my phone this weekend from Kamran’s apartment when I saw a 347 number come up, and it was indeed Landlord. We have our own separate bathrooms in his condo, as I’ve bragged about several times now, and he claimed that he had been innocently sitting in the living room when he heard a dripping sound coming from his and went to find his toilet leaking all over his bathroom floor.
Clearly this is code for “I took a giant dump earlier since you finally weren’t home to hear me, and these newfangled ultra high efficiency toilets with the lids that don’t slam when you drop them can’t handle how manly I am”, but I let it slide. He said he’d used up all of his towels trying to clean up the “water” and wondered if he could use some of mine to get the rest. I told him that sure, he could go for my thin aquamarine and pink guest towels but that he should leave my OMG softest ever Simply Vera Vera Wang Microcotton Bath Towels alone. I also told him he could use my bathroom with its handsoap shaped like little hands from Kamran for the day.
via the foliage Etsy store
The moral of the story is:
1) I am the best roommate ever.
2) Brings your own towels if you ever come to visit me.
14 Comments
I think it’s pretty impressive that you have 7 phone numbers memorized. I have one — my family. And they live an hour away, so that really won’t do me any good in an emergency.
I have several towels I’d like to get rid of, but having been through the toilet thing also, I’d rather take up closet space than risk having to use my nice towels in such a situation.
Oh, why, thank you. I also have tons of co-workers’ extensions memorized, now that I think of it. It’s very helpful when I get home from work and remember I left the heater under my desk blasting at wood-floor-igniting temperatures. I’m sure your family will be happy to call someone for you–oh, like, say, 911–so that’s really all you need.
Are you suggesting you take Landlord-sized dumps or that sometimes toilets really do just overflow on their own?
LOL. I mean, it depends on what I had for dinner and all . . .
Actually, mine was a problem with the toilet, swear! And I only had one bathroom, so I had to use the bathroom in a vacant upstairs apartment until they fixed it. Fun times.
I too am impressed by the number of phone numbers you have memorized. I mess up on my own, even. Last night I was leaving it on someone’s voice mail and my husband actually had to correct me. Not that he was eavesdropping or anything (sure). I know my dad’s cell, my google voice number (most of the time) – and I think my husband’s cell on a good day. That’s it. If my phone goes down, I hope to remember 911. No one else will ever hear from me again..
This I don’t blame you for, because I specifically chose a Google Voice number with a repeating pattern so it’d be easy to remember, and I still have to look it up all the time.
It really offends me when I’ve had someone in my phonebook forever and he or she asks for my phone number or responds to a text with “who is this?”, but I guess I should have sympathy for people whose phones die.
OOOOOH MY GOD, I need that hand soap so bad.
You really are the best roommate ever.
Seriously, Kamran always claims he’s too busy to think of personalized gifts for people, but I always end up with things like that that suit me to a T. Get some, and then invite people over and tell me their reactions, since no one ever comes to my place to enjoy it.
wait, didn’t you write an entry a couple months back where you totally tore apart your old roommate for using your towel(s) without asking?
what is this protective mother thing when it comes to you & your towels. they’re just towels. you’ll be horrified to hear that i threw all of my towels INTO THE TRASH when i recently moved from my place in melbourne to my parents’ house. and i’ll probably the same thing in a year’s time after i’ve finished in brisbane. because i’m moving to brisbane, next weekend. to stay temporarily with GEORGIA, who you might(n’t) remember (but should).
So, I’m reading your LJ post right now about Georgia picking you up from the “airpot”, and I was suddenly like, “Didn’t Aaron say something to me recently about her that I never responded to?” Oops.
Yeah, so I have a towel thing. I really love soft towels, and I don’t spend any money on clothes or shoes or furniture or decorative pillows or whatever other people spend their money on, but I have great towels. Maybe I’ll give you one next time you visit instead of my scratchy guest towels.
Anyway, say hi to Georgia and the Peach for me!
that soap is terrifying. disembodied little hands? EEK!
I JUST bought these hand soaps for my sort of new man? Maybe not boyfriend yet, but I am not sure, but anyway…YES! I just bought him these for Valentine’s Day. You truly are my sister from another mister and this proves it.
HEY! Sorry, I had kind of forgotten about this comment until something randomly reminded me of it just now and I had to go through my e-mail to find it.
You have a sort of new man?! And you bought hand soaps for him for Valentine’s Day?! I assume he’s totally in love with you by now.
Let’s hope so!
Our towels have handled everything from pet pee and poop to … well, that’s pretty bad, so I’ll leave it at that. Our toilet (knock on wood) doesn’t overflow, but it refuses to flush anything bigger than a few squares of tp without serious back-breaking plunging. Blech! I am so lucky that Tom doesn’t mind dealing with that stuff. I HATE our toilet, but it could be SO much worse.
Those hand soaps are freaky (hey! “hand” soaps/ soap for your hands – okay, everybody else got that but me, huh?), but totally fit you. Neat.