My sister's phone, much like the watch in the movie Stranger than Fiction, decides to call me every once in a while. It's done this one other time, and all I heard was jostle jostle and when I called back I got voice mail. I was freaked out and called my mom. Sis just called me but I couldn't hear her! I imagined her trapped somewhere without cell coverage. It was around the time when that guy got out of prison because he twittered one word. When my phone rang this morning, because of the snow, I thought the only person that would be calling me this early would be someone from the library saying that the library was closed, which would be ridiculous, a) because it's not that much snow and we never close, and b) because I don't work until 1 pm, so everything will be clear by then that isn't clear now.
So I called my sister and she thought, who would be calling me? The only person that calls me while I'm waiting for the bus is Mom, and she wouldn't have anything to say to me, I just saw her last night. She picked up, and I told her, "Your phone called me." She was puzzled. "It's supposed to be locked..."
"Well," I said, "It's done this once before." Which is when she said, maybe it's like the watch in the movie Stranger than Fiction. Yes, my sister's phone calls me. I have a stalker. It likes to call me and go jostle jostle. But we had a nice chat. She was freezing, standing at the bus stop.
"Guess how many layers I have on?" she asked me.
"Five!"
"Three. It's so cold today, it's 32."
"Nice try. Yesterday it was 11 here."
"Ouch. I better bring lots of layers for the weekend."
"Yep, cuz it's going to be cold."
So I told her about my newest fun thing--making sure the sidewalk in front of my house is clear. When I get home after work, I sweep the snow and then salt the walk. It takes me about ten minutes. While talking to my mom last night, I said, maybe it's because it's the only thing I can do in about ten minutes that doesn't have a second part. When I do dishes, there are always more, somewhere in my apartment, on a desk, under a coffee table. When I do laundry, I do one load at a time. But the walk, it's done and that's it! Of course, we got another inch or two overnight, so I'll have to go sweep and salt it, but it will be a lot less work than if I hadn't swept and salted it last night.
Somehow we got onto the topic of the inauguration, because of port-a-potties. There's one at the Metro now. "Yeah, that's the thing about Tuesday. It would be so cold that I'd be wearing five layers, and think about it. Five layers and a port-a-potty? No thank you!" She said, "I have friends that are going and they're like, why aren't you going? And I say, 'You must not read the newspaper.'" I would be one of those crazy people, because this election meant more to me than any election ever has, but my sister with her talk of port-a-potties and throngs of people changed my mind over Christmas break.
We chatted some more, until she was about to go into the station at the Metro. "I'm going to lose you." So we'll talk again, later.
4 years ago