I Am Heavy, I Ain't Your Brother!

I hate cell phones. I hate them with a burning passion that is only second to my deep hatred of caterpillars, and that is saying a lot! Caterpillars are the bane of my existence. I hate their nasty little bodies and the way they hump along to get anywhere. I detest their too many legs that have sticky suction cup feet that don't want to let go when they attach to you. When I see them on the road, humping along to find a warm spot, I will swerve to hit them and gladly take the ditch as long as I take out one of those abominations. I can spot a caterpillar from 50 paces even though my vision is not so hot these days. I don't like to mush them personally if I can avoid it, but if my family tries to bring one near me, I will gladly go around with caterpillar guts on my shoes, regardless of how incredibly revolting that is to me or that I will have to scrub my shoes with boiling bleach water before they can touch my feet again.

Sorry. I got sidetracked by the mere idea of caterpillars and forgot where I was going with all this. Lets try this again: I hate cell phones. If it was up to me, I wouldn't have one at all. I went for 34 years without one and never felt like anything was missing in my life. My family does not like the idea of my tooling around without a cell phone in case something should happen to me (I like to drive around on back country roads and photograph old abandoned houses as a hobby). My older sister was finally worn down by her oldest daughter and got her a newer phone because the old one was hopelessly outdated and uncool for a 14 year old to carry around, so I got that old phone, which I immediately covered with Hello Kitty stickers and stick on jewels. Princess does not like to use it because she says she is embarrassed to talk on a Hello Kitty phone. I say that I would be embarrassed to talk on a non-Hello Kitty phone. I hate people being able to get ahold of me wherever I am and it irritates me to talk on a cell phone in a store or in public at all, but if I turn it off or leave it behind, Sugarbowl says she will plant it in my rear end. So I take it with me.

This phone has been in the family for a long time (hence why it was too outdated for my image conscience niece) and has been the same number for all that time, yet I keep inexplicably getting these texts from an older black gentleman in Chicago. The first time I got a text from him, I texted him back to ask who this was. He responded that the number was his brother's old number and apologized for sending a text to the wrong number. I keep getting texts from him even though I thought we had cleared up that I am a white woman and not his brother. I don't even have any relatives in Chicago, or a brother either for that matter. No matter how many times I tell him this, he keeps sending me texts and forwards that mean nothing to me. I'm sure his brother is out there somewhere, confused by the lapse in the text conversations, not knowing that they are going to someone else who doesn't care or want them. Ugh, I give up! Keep sending me your texts, old man, even though I have told you a bajillion times that I ain't your brother! Years ago, my little sister and I had a similar problem with our home phone. Every morning at about 5 am, an old man would call and ask for "Monte." The phone was in Sugarbowl's room so she had to deal with it. One morning, after about a week of phone calls every morning, she lost her patience and yelled into the phone after he asked for Monte again, "No, Old Man!" and hung up. We never heard from him again. Time to time I wonder if he ever found Monte and I wonder if my texting friend in Chicago will ever find his brother.