Friday the 15th.

It was quarter past midnight when my phone started making noise.

It had been a surprisingly hot day in May, even for Los Angeles, and it was, at that time not surprisingly, still a good 70 degrees in my flat. I was sitting on the couch in some choneys, slurping Buchanan’s on the rocks, occasionally sucking on a one hitter, and heavily into watching Season Three of Columbo. Although it was the wee hours on a Friday night slash Saturday morning, I’d had all of two-and-a-half hours of sleep the night before, thereby making the trek to, ensuing six hours at, and drive home from the office -- all the more deplorable.

So here I was, maxing in a pair of underwear (Joy of Living Alone Rule #3), juggling several vices at once, and waiting for Peter Falk to let Donald Pleasance have it, when my phone buzzed. 818 number. No name. Screw that. I went back to watching my favorite frumpy, one-eyed detective kick some elitist, rich, Californian honky ass.

No message. I attribute it to someone drunk dialing. Ten minutes later, my phone buzzed again, this time with the name withheld. Screw that, again. This time, I spark a bowl.

Nine hundred seconds later, it rings a-fucking-gain. 818 was back. At this point, I am stoned and emboldened enough by 12-year old scotch into curiosity. I picked up. I did.

I picked up someone else’s booty call.

The fact that it was the wrong number? Even better. I don’t know what should have more emphasis – the fact that Terjon thought he was going to hook up some ass, the very smart girl who gave him the wrong number; or the fact that someone else’s midnight wish inadvertently called me as if it should signify something deep, reflective.

I was thinking out loud.

Nix that last option. No one should get emotionally scathed by a wrong number, and doubly that if the caller is named “Terjon”. It sounded like a brand of toilet. He was pretty upset when I told him he had the wrong number. Terrrrjeannnnn, he insisted, a few times over, in fact, as if chanting it three times would either break me out of, or place me into some magical late night quiet-storm-satin-sheets spell.

Terjon was at a bar, from what I could tell, a bar bumping some very, very bad neo-soul, soaring on what I can only surmise were several rum and cokes, an apparent lack of inhibitions and an exceptionally strong dose of Axe body spray.

I told him I was pretty sure he had the wrong number.
And that is when Toilet Man got all butt-hurt.

He didn’t believe me at first, then I got to aurally witness the 5 Stages in a total of six seconds: He was in disbelief that I wasn’t…whoever, then yelled that I must be lying, asked me what it would take for me to say I was…whoever, choked up on the fact I wasn’t…whoever; then hung up.

And that was my Friday. My advice to Terjon: wherever you are, darlin’, try not to be such a bitch.