Alice in What-the-Fuck-Land

(Author's Note: Names have been changed to protect the possibly-herpes-infected.)

This morning I woke up extremely disoriented to my phone ringing. It is dark out and there is a little noise on the street, but that's not really a good indication of what time it is. I pick up almost immediately, just to get it stop ringing, noticing only that the call is not from someone in my address book. "Hello?" "Alice!" says a man's voice. Oh god, please don't let it somehow be NYCMale. "Yes?" "You don't know who this is, do you?" "No," I say, if possible, more warily than before.

It turns out to be Petruchio (that's what I'm calling him because a picture of King Lear is the first thing I saw when I was searching for a man's name, and since that picture is way creepier than the real person is, I went with the name of a befitting Shakespearean character he portrayed once), a guy who I spent four years of college with, who has seen me at my drunkest on two occasions. After confessing to me that he always thought I was rather, ahem, fetching, he made a bet on my chastity with my ever good friend Erica. He lost. Several weeks ago when Erica came to visit, I reminded her that she should get her $50 from him, so we called him and made him agree to take us out to dinner.

Last night he calls and says "I'm drunk dialing you!" and then immediately starts apologizing, saying "You were asleep. Oh man. You were sleeping." I assure him that it's fine. He explains that he was looking through his phone book and thought he'd call me. He asks where I live. He mentions losing the bet. He says something to the effect of "I don't know where you're at" or "what you're up to" which I can tell has nothing to do with my location or what I was doing at the moment (given that he knew those two things) but was more a comment of my relationship status (god, doesn't he check facebook?). I try to invite him to the party on Saturday, but instead he asks to take me out to lunch. I say sure. He says that he'll call me tomorrow (today) around noon.

Then he asks if it's too late for a late-night visit from Petruchio.

I say yes.

The whole phone call lasted less than two minutes. And then all my subsequent dreams were about telling people about the conversation. And then one where he and I were eating baklava together.

It's 1.30. He hasn't called. I don't think I'm getting a free lunch today.

This is my life. I guess it sounds pretty exciting sometimes.



Oh, did I ever mention what time it turned out to be when he called? 4.30 am. I had been figuring it was maybe 1 or 2. But no, 4.30 am. Oh you crazy Petruchio, you.