Exercises
“I Sat There Waiting for the Phone to Ring”
I sat there waiting for the phone to ring. And when it did it took me completely by surprise. I jumped, spilt my coffee and just barely made it before the answer machine took over.
“I’m ringing from ...” It was a male voice and I slammed the receiver down. I’m usually polite to telemarketers, even chatty, prolonging the discourse before letting them down gently. But this time I was expecting a real phone call. It was worse than waiting for the dental nurse to call you through.
I went back to practicing my hellos.
by Michele deBes
I sat there waiting for the phone to ring. it did. it rang and rang and rang and rang. I did not answer it. I waited for the message machine to click in. I waited for the dulcet tones of the 1812 Overture, which cut into the theme from the Adam’s family before my witty departure on why I wasn’t available to answer the phone because I was waiting for it to ring.
I had always waited. I waited when I was five and daddy went away for longer and longer periods of time. Until finally he stopped ringing and never came back.
I waited when I was seventeen and using Clearasil and Avon lipgloss, and Pab Glasheen – who must have noticed me at the station — never rang.
I waited when I was twenty-six and the job interview had gone quite well hadn’t it although in retrospect my prospective employer had never looked beyond my breasts.
And now I waited — because that’s what I did. That’s all I ever did. Sitting. Waiting for the phone to ring.
by Karen Goldrick
Peter Miller was waiting for the phone to ring. He had been going to meetings with the same seven people for over a year and his patience was wearing thin.
It had seemed like such an easy assignment at the beginning.
Just bide your time, he’d been told. Blend in. Participate. Have some fun if you like. Hell, if the opportunity arises, get your rocks off. It won’t be long. And he'd been patient. It hadn’t been that hard a job, really, and when he'd needed a breather they’d organised a nifty cover story, photos and everything.
But living a life of deceit had finally begun to wear him down. Those seven people had started to get under his skin. He’d started to care about them. He’d even considered letting them inside the lie to glimpse a little of the real him. So it was time to get out. Time to do what he was hired to do and leave it all behind. If that phone would only ring.