Calling Bin Laden

“You’re not going to call Bin Laden, are you?”

I asked him as I walked to my car early yesterday morning from the water’s edge.

I was taking photos of my Queen Anne’s Lace by the pond and he was off to the left standing on the boat landing talking on his cell phone.

His came over just after I snapped this close-up and said his battery died, asked politely if I had a cell phone and could he borrow it to make a local call.

I live in a small, big town.  I meet people at water’s edge periodically, mostly fisherman.  I said, “Sure,” and walked to my car asking him about Bin Laden.

He smiled.

He took the phone and I went back to my camera.  A few minutes later, he returned the phone, thanked me, chit chatted amiably and he introduced himself and inquired whether I worked for the local paper.  I explained my local photographer status and gave him my card as many of the photos on my town website would be of places he knew.

End of story until my phone rang later on in the afternoon.

A woman said, “Who’s this?”  I said, nicely, “Well, who’s this?”  She said her first name.  I ddn’t recognize the name or the voice.  I said, “I think you have the wrong number.”  She apologized and hung up.  Then, after a minute, the phone rang again and I let it ring.  It was the same “BLOCKED ID” number and the only reason I answered it in the first place was sometimes my friend who has dementia calls me and she has a blocked phone.  It rang.  Stopped. Rang again. Stopped.  I figured if it was someone who knew me, they would leave a message.

It rang again and this time there was a voicemail.

“I checked this number.  This is the right number.  You need to call me back at this number (and she gave me her number). I don’t know who you are and I’m wondering what you are doing with my husband.”

O, crappola.  No good deed goes unpunished.  I wanted to laugh because if you’d seen the early morning outfit I was wearing on my 64 year old frame: summer silk pants, aqua color, that are voluminous like a court jester, a pale blue T shirt way way too big, hangin’ down around my knees like a rapper, topped with a waist level cotton sweater (celery green) with a stand up collar.  I looked like one of those circus performers who enter before the elephants doing somersaults more than a “home wrecker”.

But, I could not make a joke.  This woman was serious.

So, I called her back explained that I had lent my phone to a man who said his phone was dead.  She seemed relieved but skeptical.  “Well, I don’t know how his phone would be dead,”  And, then, she said, “Ok,” and hung up.

First thought?  Honestly,  I wish  he’d called Bin Laden.  I’d rather deal with the FBI than an angry wife.

©Pat Coakley 2009

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