the telephone/nap challenge

Harmony's entry about her father calling her unexpectedly reminded me of my dad. When I was in college, he loved to surprise me with a phone call. He always called during the day, during the week, although he never talked for very long. My guess is that he was in the office and between meetings, and thought it would be fun.

However, there was another entertaining aspect to the phone calls: my dad wanted to see if he could catch me in a nap. I realized this was intentional when my brother left for college in Lafayette and my dad did the same thing to him. He would call mid-morning, or mid-afternoon, and say that he hoped he hadn't woken us up. It was a game, and he "won" if he heard a sleepy voice on the other line. Winning meant he had the chance to tease us about it, make hangover jokes, and use his standard line about how only night watchmen and prostitutes are asleep after 10 am.

I quickly learned how to answer the phone in the brightest, perkiest voice possible after being interrupted mid-nap. (I have to wonder why the hell I didn't automatically ignore the ringing phone, and I think sometimes I did let the answering machine pick it up ... but I'm a light sleeper and a ringing phone would wake me up quite thoroughly.) If it wasn't a game to start with, it quickly became a game for both of us. Could I disguise the fact that I'd been having an afternoon siesta? Usually I could. My brother, however, has always taken a while to wake up, and he never managed to hide the fact that he'd been asleep. He was also a chronic late sleeper who would wait until the last possible second to wake up and dash off to class, or work, and my dad was delighted to catch him napping.

I remember the game aspect of the calls more than the calls themselves. The topic was usually funny stories about various relatives. My parents went to dinner with my grandparents, and my grandmother ... my sister stayed out too late with her boyfriend, and the next day, my baby brother ... My dad was at the fitness center, and guess who he saw, whom he hadn't seen in years? You get the idea.

The tradition started to fade when my brother and I both graduated -- after one semester away from home, my sister decided to attend college in town and lived with my parents. My dad used to phone me occasionally while I was working the switchboard at a certain public TV station in town, but I was always having to put him on hold to answer questions about Barney, so it wasn't as much fun for him. And then my dad retired, so he didn't have those downtimes in the office, or on a business trip, when he decided to amuse himself by calling us to chat.

Now we're the ones at work, and my dad never calls me during the day. I doubt he's calling my brother or sister, either, because they're teachers and it's difficult for them to take calls. My youngest brother still lives at home. And it's also difficult to talk with my dad at work, because his hearing isn't what it once was, and you have to speak loudly. Once in a great while, he will call in an evening to tell me a story that my mom would not tell me, usually about my grandmother. Back in the day, these used to be hilarious stories -- but my grandmother is genuinely ill now, so they're just sad.

As I'm writing this, I'm tempted to start calling my dad in the afternoon, to see if I can catch him taking an afternoon nap. It's pretty rich that he used to tease us for sleeping; my dad is the king of nappers. These days, he gets up at the crack of dawn to walk or ride his bike, spends a couple of hours playing golf or stripping and refinishing furniture, and often babysits his grandkids. I couldn't get through all that without a nap myself. It would be downright mean to call him ... but then, my family has always felt that a little meanness is justified in the name of humor. It's a family trait I'd like to discard, so I will resist temptation. For now.

Posted at December 7, 2006 05:11 PM