Right, very simple. At first my plan worked well, so well in fact that I did the unthinkable. I shut off my land line phone. I know it sounds crazy but what did I need that for? My cell is more affordable, goes with me everywhere and most lovely of all, no solicitors. My purse (which I bought before the phone) even has a little cell phone compartment.

Skip ahead to now. Someone has my number. I dont mean theyve stolen it or cloned it or anything, I mean they have it and theyre calling me. ALL THE TIME. Someone with an unknown caller ID is calling me every 45 minutes. I got 40 calls in 3 days. 40! In 3 days! No number shows up and they dont leave a voice mail. Do you understand the force of will it takes not to answer a ringing phone. Its inbred into our nature, dogs howl along with sirens, lemmings follow each other off a cliff, humans answer a ringing phone. So now, as I sit in my pajamas on my one day to sleep in and then lounge around the house eating fruit loops and watch BBC America, I am obsessing about the whether or not I should answer the phone if to only tell the person on the other end to fuck off. But I dont answer it and it goes quiet for a while, but I know that very soon it will again playing Serenade, wooing me to answer. I know that it has to be a sales call or something or they would leave a message. I could answer it and then if it is a solicitor, tell them to remove my number from their list, but the passive aggressive approach is what Ive decided to go with, besides the only time that it really bothers me is when it is actually ringing.

Thats not the neurotic part. The neurotic part is that as suddenly as it started, it stopped. Not trickle off, mind you, as you would expect. Stone cold stopped calling. Which makes me wonder, why did they stop?