Deux Degrees of Separation

So one day I’m taking a mid-day nap on my fluffy couch when I hear my phone ringing. I wake up in just enough time to miss the call and notice it’s a Chicago number I’ve never seen before.

One of the main rules of working in the promo industry is always answer your phone since a lot of times gigs are on a first come first serve basis. If a client can't reach you they may give your job to the next person who actually does answer their phone call. On this fateful day, following the always-answer/return-phone-calls rule lead to an interesting situation. I immediately called back the number that started with the popular 773 Chicago area code and the conversation went like this:

“Hi I just got a call from this number”

“Is this TK?”

I cleared my throat and put on my professional work voice. “Yes. With whom am I speaking?”

“This is Phil.”

Thinking that maybe I had worked a program with Phil or had applied for a freelance job that I didn’t remember, I tried to jog my memory. When I really couldn’t remember him I thought it would be better to just ask this Phil character who he is so that we could get the conversation over with and I could resume my napping.

“Uh, hi Phil. I apologize but where do I know you from?”

“Well it’s a long story.”

Not what you want to hear when you really just want to go back to sleep.

“You see I’m thinking that we met at a club in downtown Chicago. Maybe near Dearborn?"

Just so you know, I don’t hang out at any clubs in downtown Chicago. In the 4 years I’ve lived here I might have been to 3 actual clubs. I feel like I’m past my clubbing days and even when I was “of clubbing age” it wasn't really my thing. I’m more of a house party, swanky lounge or warehouse event type gal.  

Feeling increasingly skeptical, I reply, “Uh huh.”

Phil continues with, “I had your number saved in my phone. It said TK and had four stars next to it. I know you must be a really hot lady if I put four stars next to your name.”

I wonder if he means 4 out of 5 stars. What grading scale are we talking about here?

“I must have had your number for at least a year but I dropped my phone in water one day and I lost my numbers for a while.”

Even though this phone call is weird, I figure if nothing else I can blog about it. Look at me, always hustling. 

“Yea I hear that if you put your phone in rice it will dry it out and then you can use it again”

“Oh I should try that next time. I just recently turned the phone back on, but I can’t remember what you look like. Could you describe yourself to me?”

Okay, phone call just took a turn for the worse.  

“Actually I’m really sleepy. Your call woke me up. Maybe we can chat later?” 

Plan was to save his number as DO NOT ANSWER and block all text messages from him.

“Oh sorry about waking you up. Well I’ma let you go…”

Thank God

“…but I’m 33 years old, about 6ft tall and 200lbs. I’m Black and Creole with wavy hair. I know 200 sounds like a lot but I work out. What about you?”

This time I’m mildly interested in where he is going with this. He obviously thinks being Black and Creole is going to tip the scales in his favor or give him some kind of sexy guy advantage with me. IT WOULD NOT. Not because I have anything against Black/Creole guys because racially, I'm an equal opportunity employer. My question is, who calls someone out of the blue, after supposedly having their number for a year just to talk? The statute of limitations has definitely passed on being able to call me back. However, given this random new information, I don’t hang up right away.

“You know, I’m brown skinned, medium sized, black hair with brown eyes.” 

And so are 3.1 million black girls in the United States.

“Would you say that you have a big booty?”

My mistake for not hanging up earlier.

“It’s not huge or anything. But I really need to get back to sleep.”

I don't even try to hide my disgust. Weirdo.

“Well maybe we can go out tonight around 7 to Starbucks. We really need to meet back up”

Am I being punked? Negro I don’t know you! We have NEVER met!

“I don’t know about that. I work the night shift. Gotta catch them Z’s.”

“Well do you have an intelligent phone? You could send me a photo and I could send you one too.”

Intelligent phone? Umm, you just proved your intelligence right then and there. I’m not even making this up. He really said that!

“Nah, I have one of those old school flip phones. All it does it ring. Listen Phil it was nice talking to you but I really have to go. Have a good day!”

And a good life creeper.

So I call up my friend Lil (whom you may remember from here) and tell her all about my twilight zone convo with Phil. Lil is a pretty good sport about things and she wanted to see what he looked like. She suggests that I send him a pic of her and ask for one back. Okay, cool. As long as it’s not my photo I don’t care. I don’t want some strange guy who got my OUT OF STATE phone number from God knows where, masturbating to my photo on his intelligent phone. I send him a photo of Lil asking for one in return. This is what I get.

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Wait for it

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Oh it gets better

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..

WTF?

O_o Now I really wanna know where he got my number! At least after seeing that beat up flip phone from 2003 I know why he called it an “intelligent phone.” Real talk, if I were going to give my number out to a guy, it wouldn’t be this guy! I showed my Mom his photos and she almost spit her Cheerios out laughing. Even If I were drunk and out of my mind I still have standards. I’m a 4 star girl after all.

I’ve given out my number maybe once in the last year to a cute Puerto Rican guy that worked at Marshall’s. We made eye contact from across the store, chatted as he rang up my items and he told me silly jokes about customers. I can easily fall for a cute guy with a great sense of humor any day. I went out on a limb, gave him my number and he never called me back. Maybe he dropped his phone in water and I can expect a phone call in a year, but personally I like to think that he got hit by a car. And now I obviously can’t go back to my neighborhood Marshall’s because it would be way too hard to deal with him not being there. Tragedy.

Anyways, as far as this Phil business goes, a funny thing happened on the way home from the supermarket the other day. I’ll tell you what went down in Part II of Deux Degrees of Separation.