I quit my teaching position to have a baby, and my husband was graduating from college the same month. We were living in Texas at the time, and I had just given birth to my first baby. My husband jumped into one of our lousy cars and drove off to Washington to get a job. (Yes, my husband and I had agreed that after he finished college, we would move to a state that “looked more like England,” and we decided on Washington, even though we knew no one there.)
So I was alone with my four-week-old colicky baby one afternoon, and he was way overdue for a nap. He screamed and screamed for three solid hours. I was so exhausted and weary when finally the baby fell asleep. I crawled into bed and was drifting off into la-la land when suddenly the phone rang.
Oh, I forgot to tell you we were in a one-bedroom apartment. I decided to sell the dining room table when we got the crib, and we would just eat food while sitting on the couch. Our only phone was in the dining room, which was now the makeshift nursery.
Even though my body felt like lead, I jumped out of bed to get the ringing phone, lest it wake up the baby. The moment I jumped up, I threw out my back and felt excruciating pain.
As soon as I said, “Hello?” I heard a telemarketer on the other end. I also heard the baby begin screaming again.
I couldn’t hear what the telemarketer was saying, but I interrupted, “Thank you for ruining my life. You caused me to throw out my back, and you woke up the baby. And it took me three hours to put him to sleep. Take me off your list, and never call back here again.”
I hung up the phone.
I could barely walk. I fumbled around to find some pain killer that wouldn’t affect breast milk, but there wasn’t any.
Needless to say, when I moved to Washington two weeks later, I got an unlisted phone number. It was bliss. Nobody called. The phone never rang unless it was my mother.
Fast forward about a decade. I was at the state fair, and someone was wanting me to put my phone number on a piece of paper for a drawing. What was the prize? $100. I told the person, “If you paid me $100 for my phone number, I wouldn’t give it to you, so why on earth would I enter your drawing?”
The lady looked at me like I was out of my mind.
