Why I Hate Wrong Numbers

The Wife goes to sleep pretty early most nights -- generally before 8:00.

Often, when she or someone else calls me on my cell phone, I can't hear it, so I turn the volume up as loud as it will go. Only The Wife has a special ringtone; everyone else rings in with the Miami Vice theme because I think it's a cool piece of music and it seems to induce smiles in people of my generation.

I try, as hard as I can, to remember to silence the phone at night when I put the it away to charge up. But I'm not perfect and forget to do this sometimes. And of course, only on the nights when I forget to do this does someone misdial the phone and call me at 9:00. So then I have to leap out of my chair and spill the computer dangerously on the floor, go running for the phone, and try to silence it as soon as I can.

Of course I never get there in time to prevent The Wife from waking up and asking me if I hate her. And then I feel guilty the rest of the night. Because someone I don't know dialed a wrong number.