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.