Telephone Call

I find it hard to believe we ever lived without caller ID. The time I spent telling telemarketers no. It was a full time job for me, let alone the hours they spent speed dialing every number in the phone book. I recall one Sunday when caller ID would have served me well but this story would not be half as funny. I got home from church, ready for our usual lunch and nap. Eat lunch, put on the painting guy and fall into a PBS-induced coma. Remember the "here's a little squirrel in the little tree..." guy? His voice was the equivalant to 3 Tylenol PM's. We looked like we had narcolepsy. We'd put his show on "honey could you pass the..zzzzz................." We'd wake up 5 hours later. That was pretty much our Sunday. This particular Sunday I was making lunch and the phone rang. No caller ID, I'm going in blind. "Hello". "Hello". "Helloooo?" Nothing. Click. On to lunch. Phone rings. "Hello". Now I hear something. Nothing remotely human but definitely something. "Hello?" "I..I...I" and laughter. Click. Now this time they hung up. I'm irritated because time is ticking on my PBS induced coma, but I'm also curious. Phone rings. This time I'm gonna answer kind of forceful so they know who they're messing with. "Hello." Again I hear "I, I...I went" laughter. Now it's clicking "Sharon?" My sister. She says "Yes, I'll call you back." Click. I'am not waiting for her to call me back. If there's something funny to be shared, I'm all about it. I call her. She answers but all I hear is her laughing. I guess this is a good time to point out that when my sister and I laugh really hard, we honk. Sort of way back in our throats. Our faces are all contorted, no real sound is coming out but the honk. Very attractive when we start laughing in public. The honk is also directly attached to our bladders. If were honking, we're probably peeing. Nice qualities in a wife huh? So I'm hearing the honk which of course makes me start laughing. I have absolutely no idea what she is laughing at. So I ask her "what are you laughing at?'' Again " I...I... honk...I ..went.....outside!"So I'm thinking why is that funny? We're having a full honk and pee fest and I'm not getting it. "So, why is that funny?" I ask. More honking and laughing, mostly from her, cause I'm out of the loop. "I...went...outside.. naked!!" Now I'm clued in and I'm back to honking and laughing. We laughed for awhile and she said she would call me back when she could explain. This I decide is worth missing a nap for. She calls me back several times before I got the whole story. Well it was Sunday morning and her husband decides to fix the porch roof. Just as my sister was getting in the shower. She's running the water and he yells up that he's going up on the roof. They had 2 little boys ages 2 and 3. She yells to him to make sure he locks the front door so the boys won't follow him. Now 15 years later the debate continues on. Did he hear her? Did she really say that? The only witnesses were too little to back anybody up. So she steps in the shower and she starts to doubt herself. Did he answer me? Where are the boys? So she steps out. She'll just peek down the steps, the front door is directly in view from the steps, this will just take a second. She runs down the stairs and her heart stops. The front door is wide open and there's only one boy in sight. Frantically she calls out to her husband. Nothing. the other boy just looks at her, he's no help. Did I mention she was in the shower? Did you forget she was in the shower? Because she did. Just as she looking for something to wrap around herself, which turned out to be a size 2T denim jacket, she heard her husband yell. Her son was halfway up the ladder. With him halfway up, her husband couldn't come down to help him. She grabbed the little jacket and put it in front of herself. 2T. That's 2 toddler. It's the size of a dinner napkin. She isn't. She did exactly what any of us would do, she went outside and grabbed him off the ladder. And ran back into the house. Tragedy averted. Or was it? You see the fact that it was Sunday morning is significant. My sister lives on a very busy road. With lots of houses, and did I mention a church. At the end of her street. A little church, where the median age of the parishioner is 85. The pastor lives 2 doors down from her. It was Sunday morning. As the church is filling and as the pastor is leaving his house to greet them and share the gospel, my sister ran out of her house wearing only a dinner napkin. We laughed harder when we realized that not only did they see the front of a crazed naked woman run out of a house and grab a baby off a ladder. They saw the back. She had to turn her back to the street to grab him, and retreat. There was no size 2T denim jacket back there. No sir. Her husband came off the ladder, put it away and decided he'd wait until naptime to finish. Yeah, I'm gonna go with, good idea. My sister eventually could tell the story without honking, although it took years. The boys don't remember anything( that saves them years of therapy.) My concern is for the elderly parishioners of that little Methodist church. I would have given anything to hear that sermon. My sister managed to rearrange her life as to never bump into the pastor again. I believe they call it witness protection....or something.