I Get Butt-Dialed A Lot.

My name is Abby and that makes me first in a lot of cell phone contacts lists. Unless you have an Aaron in there, I’m first. Or unless you mess with it and put AAAHusband so your husband is first. Or if you put ZZZAbby so I’m last. Anyway, if you don’t mess with it, I’m usually first.

Because of this alphabeticality (it could be a word) of my name, I get butt-dialed a lot and it’s kind of creepy sometimes. I mean, somebody calls me and doesn’t say anything, but I can hear background stuff? It’s weird. My nephew does it pretty frequently and I always think it’s an emergency. Like maybe his leg is trapped under a tree and his cell phone is just out of reach so he threw a rock at it just to get it dialing and he can’t tell that it called me and before he figured it out, he passed out from the pain. I always debate calling 911. One of these days I’m going to do it. Maybe.

The other night, Kristen’s husband was working through the night at his dangerous lighting job and he butt-dialed us 7 times and left 5 messages. We turned our ringer off, but the first time he butt-dialed us, Bryan answered and we were both a little worried that it was an emergency. I heard Bryan answer the phone and then I heard him say, “I can’t hear you! Joe? JOE!” Bryan swears he heard him say, “Dude!” which we thought meant he was probably trying to say, “Dude, I’m trapped in a puddle of water and there’s a live wire swinging around wildly! It’s just a matter of time before I’m toasted! Dude, help!” We were going to call 911, but then we remembered that we didn’t know exactly where Joe was working and we felt it would be rude to send the rescue workers on a wild goose chase, so we just turned the ringer off and went back to sleep. He was alright, though. In the morning there were 5 messages that all had Joe’s far-away voice talking about lighting and prices and what goes where. It was boring and the only emergency was that I could have died from boredom. But I listened because what if he said something interesting? What if there really was an emergency?

Really, I think I’m getting desensitized to the feeling that there’s an emergency when somebody calls and doesn’t say anything. So if there is an emergency which doesn’t prohibit your cell phone from calling me, but does prohibit your speech, you should not call me. I’ll totally hang up on you. And then I’ll make fun of you for butt-dialing me and you won’t get rescued. And that would be embarassing for me.