White Courtesy Phone

Last night at the tattoo convention the $10 fortune teller told me to "never ever answer the white courtesy phone."

This freaked me out. You see I have never met this bangled behemoth before. So how she knows there is a white courtesy phone tucked away in my kitchen that has been there since the day I moved in ten years ago, is a complete mystery to me. Almost as mysterious as the phone itself. The landlord told me that the phone came with the apartment and there was no extra charge. I told him I was glad there was no extra charge because the phone had no dial or buttons to place a call with. He told me it was just for incoming calls and that it would probably never ring and it was "no extra charge so what do you want?"

Last week after ten years of silence the phone started to ring. At first it would just ring once and by the time I got there it would stop and I would pick it up and there would be a deadline. Then it started ringing two or three times and stop just as I was about to pick it up as if it had eyes and could see me approaching. I called my landlord yesterday and told him I wanted the white courtesy phone fixed or I want it taken out. He said he tried to take it out after he bought the building. And then he said "there is nothing I can do."

The phone started ringing this morning. The cats are freaked because I am. I have pillows and blankets covering the phone but somehow I can still hear it.

Sooner or later. I will.