Phone a Friend

Despite a coffee mug to the contrary, I’m not the world’s best husband. I don’t know who is, but I can assure you it’s not me. I’ve had more than my fair share of screw ups and let my wife down more times than I care to remember.

But every now and again I strike gold with an idea that buys me more screw ups. Fortunately, I had just any idea recently for my wife’s [redacted] birthday.

Because it’s easy and convenient, most of my friends and I simply wish one another happy birthday on facebook. We’re already there, we see it’s someone’s birthday and in 10 seconds, we’ve fulfilled our friend duties by acknowledging the anniversary of the day of their birth in a socially acceptable manner. I’ve done it hundreds of times and will likely continue to do so. Every now and I again, I might actually send someone a text, you know, for that personal touch.

Well, the day before my wife’s birthday, I thought it’d be nice if she got a phone call. Or two. Or maybe 25 or 30 or more. So I set out to contact as many of her friends as I could asking them to take two or three minutes out of their day to call her. Anyone from old college friends we hadn’t seen in a decade to neighbors who moved away to former student-workers of hers.

At about 9 a.m., my wife messages me to say something’s going on. “All these people are calling me,” she said. I did my best to play dumb, asking “who’s calling?” and letting her enjoy her calls. By noon, she says she’s on to me. When she gets home from work, she tells me she’s been overwhelmed. She’d be on the phone with one person and she’d see someone else call and go “Ohh, I wanted to talk to them too but I didn’t want to stop talking to the person on the phone.”

I get the feeling it’s a birthday she won’t soon forget.