To the person who thinks my home phone number is a fax machine and started calling at midnight on a night when I actually went to bed before midnight and continued calling every 30 minutes until I took the phone off the hook at 1 AM, I am trying really, really hard to love you. The first time you called I worried it was my husband who was on call, working nights. I feared something was wrong. The second time you called I cut you some slack and assumed you would figure out that this number WAS NOT a fax machine. The third time you called I yelled into the phone, “This is not a fax machine. This is the home of a very tired mommy. Stop calling!!!” Only to hear you taunt me, beeping back at me. Then I took the phone off the hook, lest you decided to really try my patience and call again. After all, I am only human and you were proving to be a worthy opponent. However, after I nursed the baby at 3 AMish, the cordless phone started beeping because its battery was low. Somehow I’d forgotten all about you and your mission to make my life miserable and stupidly put the phone back on the hook.
You finally gave me some rest…thank you…but you were back at it at 7:30 AM and you woke up my 3-year-old who never sleeps in and then you kept calling and calling. I yelled into the phone again. My 3-year-old and baby both stared at me, surely worrying that their mommy had lost it and I almost had. You nearly sent me over the edge. I STAR-69ed you and tried to tell you that this number is not a fax machine, but all I heard was the maniacal beeping of you guessed it, a fax machine. You must have programmed this number into your blasted machine. You’re probably sleeping peacefully. I’m not, but get this: I love you anyway. Do you hear me, Arch Enemy, Robber of My Precious Sleep? I love you anyway. So what if you kept me awake on a night when my teething baby only woke up once and my preschooler decided to ignore the sun peeping through the blinds and actually remained slumbering on beside me? I will not let this keep me from loving you. So keep on calling. Keep testing me. You will not harden my heart.