No Phone

I keep my own personal Book of Lists, not necessarily of "curious things" of which Wallechinsky's original boasted, but such things as every address I've lived at, every job I've had, every state I've been to, and so forth. (The longest is the list of casinos I've gambled at.)

There is one missing piece of data that bugs me: I can't remember the phone number I had when I lived in Spartan Village, Michigan State's apartment complex for graduate and married students.

My wife and I took a joy ride last Friday, just to get the stink blown off us, as my mother used to say, and happened to find ourselves in the general neighborhood of Spartan Village.  When I lived there, the telephones were provided by the University, with 355- as the exchange, and the numbers went in order as you went down the line of apartments.  I wondered if the numbers were still the same, so I insisted my wife drive to the building I once lived in. Although MSU is still on break, I saw a light on in Apartment E of my building and boldly approached. My knock was answered by a tall young man of some foreign persuasion who seemed curious but friendly, and I began by saying, "This is going to seem real weird, but I used to live here."

That delighted him, for some reason, and he invited me in. I explained what I wanted and why, and so that he wouldn't suspect me of wanting to stalk him, I asked for just the last four numbers of his phone number. I figured I would know it when I heard it, even if it was 30 years ago. But the number he gave me, which he read off the telephone itself, had a zero in it, and I know my number didn't have a zero in it.

The young man invited me to sit down and when I declined, invited me to stay and have supper with him. Poor guy. Christmas break can be a lonesome time of year.

My wife still can't believe I had the nerve to do that.  Moxy, she called it.

Well, yeah.