The Telephone is not Your Friend

The first ring.

I pretend like I don’t hear the phone. “It must be in the cube next to me.”

The second ring.

I look at the small round red light blinking on my phone. My palms are starting to sweat. I look at the clock on my PC and wonder if I can just say it is too close to quitting time to answer the damn phone. I look casually over my left shoulder to see if my boss is there watching me. I stare at the blinking red light again.

The third ring.

Shit. Shit. Shit. It is probably some stupid user. “Why don’t you just reboot? you stupid ass?” I wrap my fingers around the hand piece of the phone, but I do not remove it from the cradle. I can fell my armpits sweating into my sweater. Shit. Shit. Shit.

The fourth ring.

“What is going on here? Why can’t I just pick up the phone?”

The red light is still blinking. The plastic of the hand piece is wet with hand sweat. I can smell my deodorant.

The red light stops blinking and is now unlit. There is no fifth ring. I look around to see if anybody sees me. I hold my breath and listen if anybody is talking about me. I try to make myself invisible. I feel cool as the air conditioning vent above blows dry the nervous sweat my pale skin is covered with.

I stare at the phone looking at the light that lives next to the word PHML. I am waiting to see if it lights up or if I truly avoided something. If I am lucky, the stupid user called someone else.

The light next to PHML illuminates. I decide that I do not notice it and go back to surfing the internet.