Are We There Yet?
Wrong number spoils
the whole darn joke
My friend, Beth, is quite a kidder. She’s quick with jokes, spins a good yarn and is the first person you’d suspect if you awoke on a Saturday to find a harvest gold toilet smack dab in the middle of your front lawn.
It goes without saying that if you call Beth, you’re going to enjoy witticism of some sort or another. It’s fun to be friends with a gal like Beth.
In fact, any time I call Beth, I expect to enjoy humor of some sort. I can count on her to tell me (A) that she has been contacted by Social Services and is filling out a full report regarding my child care; (B) that the clean house committee has just left her home and are on their way to mine; or (C) that she has just joined a cult, and as soon as I shave my head, I’ll be welcome to bring cookies and join her for a meeting.
Sometimes, in anticipation of Beth’s antics, I decide to get the upper hand when I call and ask her in a seductive voice, “What are you wearing?”
My sense of humor kicked in full bore when I called Beth on the phone the other night.
“BBeeettthhh,” I said in the most sinister of voices. When she didn’t respond right away, I dropped my voice another octave and repeated ominously, “Beeetthhh Nozicka!”
Although I could have sounded like Mickey Mouse with a sore throat, I was really trying to come across as a goon on the prowl. Which would be appropriate when one is calling Beth.
“Beg your pardon?” she inquired in a soft, innocent voice.
“Beth Nozicka, is that you?” I was trying to be as foreboding as possible and even throwing some faux anger into the mix.
“No, this isn’t Beth Nozicka,” she replied without missing a beat. I couldn’t help chuckling to myself. That Beth, she’s such a kidder.
So I dropped the goon-on-a-prowl voice and went to a whispering villain’s voice, straight from the set of “Scream” and said, “I know who you are.” I just knew that one would crack her up.
“But I’m not Beth Nozicka,” she insisted.
“Well-ell,” I said as evil as possible, “we both know that you’re Beth Nozicka, and I’ve got plans for you, Beth.”
Instead of acting afraid, or dropping the phone and running to her panic room and slamming the door, she replied, “But I’m really not Beth.”
Now, anyone who knows Beth knows that you don’t let Beth get the best of you. Nothing makes Beth happier than getting one’s goat.
“Perhaps,” I said as I added a lisp to the mix, “you should put Beth Nozicka on the phone then.”
“But there’s no Beth here.”
She was holding her ground, but I’ll tell you this, Beth Nozicka certainly was not going to get the best of Lori Clinch. Yet the dark and sinister voice was getting old, so I decided to jazz things up a bit, went with my high-pitched, “I’m an idiot” voice and said, “Do you know Beth Nozicka?”
Again the gal said, “No.”
“Well then, could you call someone who knows Beth Nozicka?”
“But I don’t know anyone who knows Beth Nozicka.”
“Well then, we do seem to have a problem then, don’t we? Why don’t you tell me what our choices are?” That Beth, she can really hang tough.
“I’m not sure,” she replied.
“All right then, you win,” I said as I tired of the game. “So what are you doing for lunch tomorrow.”
“Nothing,” she said, “but I’m really not Beth Nozicka.”
Feeling like a fool and wondering to myself if this woman really was telling the truth and she really wasn’t Beth as she was so vehemently claiming, I swallowed hard and inquired, “You really aren’t Beth?”
“No,” she chuckled.
“You aren’t messing with me?”
“No.”
“You’re not pulling my chain?”
“Honest to gosh.”
The woman was tolerant enough of my antics, but I could not have been more embarrassed. If I could have backed out of a room and made a run for it I would have.
I suppose it could have been worse. I could have screwed up on houses instead of phone numbers, and accidentally put the harvest gold toilet on this poor woman’s front lawn.
Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book “Are We There Yet?” Her e-mail address is [email protected].