2004-12-28 - 9:58 a.m.

I have absolutely no desire to ‘chat’ on the phone.

None what-so-fucking-ever. Thank you.

Don’t call me. Unless you start breathing heavy, and are willing to describe in excruciating detail exactly all the nasty perverted things you will do to me, I have no desire to speak with you on the phone. Even then, except for a few short muffled groans, followed by one long one, you will not get much out of me.

Nothing. Nada.

My lovely wife doesn’t understand this. She can talk for hours on the phone. I amazed at this skill. I am an extremely outgoing person. I have no problem chatting up a complete stranger about absolutely nothing. I will regale you for hours with jokes, commentary and endless diatribes on absolutely nothing. See that piece of lint on the floor? I can carry on an intelligent, witty exchange of thoughts and ideas about it for hours. Trust me. I can even get you to start passionately arguing about it. It’s a gift.

But put me on the phone and suddenly I have the communication skills of a retarded 2 year old with a mouth full of snot flavored marbles. I’ll stand there with the phone to my ear doing the bored dance that 5 years olds do while waiting for their mother to finish clothes shopping.

I used to think not talking on the phone was a “guy thing”. But lately, many of my so-called guy friends started to call me up and wanting to “talk”. This is a disturbing trend that makes me very uncomfortable. I find myself cringing when the phone rings.

What the hell? When did this become an acceptable pastime for men? Did I miss a meeting? I never got the memo.

Despite me frantically waving my hands at my wife and mouthing the words “I DO NOT WANT TO TALK. TELL THEM I AM NOT HOME” My wife will hand me the phone. “It’s Mike. He wants to talk to you.” She’d press the phone into my hand and walk away, leaving me there to “talk”. Noooooooooooo.

“Oh” I would first think. “I wonder what is wrong? Something is broken, or perhaps someone is dead, or maybe Mike has stumbled across free passes to the nudie bar?”

Nope.

Mike would just start gabbing away about his work day. At first I tried to pay attention, thinking the conversation was heading somewhere. I’d take notes and reply with an occasional “Un-huh, yup…I see.” Eventually, I realized he was just talking. Talking! Randomly. Chatting away. Vocalizing random brain synapses. He didn’t need help. No one died. He didn’t have free passes to FunBags McJiggleys. He just wanted to “talk”.

How nice.

“Mike, what the hell are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Does this phone call have a point?”

“No. I just wanted to talk. You know….See how things are going…”

And I stood there dumbfounded, wondering if he had accidently gotten into his wife’s estrogen pills...again.

“Um, so what are you wearing?” was the only thing I could manage to come up with. Out of the corner of my eye I can see my lovely wife. She is smirking. She does this to me on purpose.

Damn her. I’ll show her.

Next time the phone rings I’m running out of the house.

Cash Out - Another Round