No Wonder I'm Jumpy

Every time the phone rings, land-line or cell, no diff, I tend to overreact.  My mind races, my heart pitter pats. It's an internal cluster-eff of oh no, something's wrong.  Is this a healthy way to go through life?  Probably not.  But bad news seems to find me.  I don't have to go looking for it.  In the past two days, I've received three collect call messages on my cell phone, all from some correctional facility up north.  First thought:  Do I know anybody in jail?  Not since my Great Uncle Moshe did that naked dance at Nat n' Al's, and that was a while ago.  Second thought:  Who's up north?  Hang on.  It's coming to me.  Give me a minute.  Someone very close to us.  Someone near and dear.  I place a call.  "Hi, honey."  "Hey, sweet Mama."  "How's the apartment?"  "Great."  "Been to jail lately?"  "Nope."  "Oh, thank God."  "Why do you ask?"  "No reason. Talk to you later."  So, no family member is incarcerated.  This is a good thing.  Once again, the universe was just playing a little prank on the SJG.

Still, it got me wondering why I get so worked up every time the phone rings.  I believe I've got the answer.  I blame a book I read in 1980, when I was a researcher on a TV show.  A personal career low point for me, by the way.  I got fired after 8 days for asking the a-hole producer not to smoke a cigar in closed-door meetings. So much for that correspondence course in assertiveness training.  How I came upon "Phone Calls From The Dead," I can't recall, but the concept still freaks me out.  All that "evidence" of phone calls people received from Grandma, only to find out, uh, Grandma died before you got that call.  What up with that? Clearly, "Phone Calls From the Dead" traumatized me for life.  Just thinking about it now disturbs me, deeply. Next time the phone rings, land-line or cell, I'm letting it go to voicemail.