interruption

do you know the episode of seinfeld where kramer gives elaine's home number to some company and they start faxing her all of the menus for all of the restaurants in new york city? i know it's totally not hip-urban-queer to watch seinfeld, but gimme a break. it's a good show. ah, you know that one? well, it's become my life.

for the last two nights a fax machine has been calling my house. only during the nighttime. or maybe they've timed it only to happen when i'm in bed, like there's a sensor under my mattress or something, because it happens either late at night or early in the morning.

two nights ago, after michael went home, i curled up in bed with dress codes: of three girlhoods--my mother's, my father's, and mine (don't bother reading it. it sucks. not that you were planning on it.) only to have my house phone ring at around 11:00. thinking it strange--the only people who ever call my house are telemarketers and terry--i answered the phone, hoping nothing was wrong. the unmistakeable, hateful sound of a fax machine greeted me. i went to bed. at midnight, the phone rang again. i let it ring, enjoying my tylenol-pm-induced stupor. when it rang at 12:30 i dazedly unpluggd the phone.

all was quiet for the rest of the day; dinner passed without fax interruption, michael left, and i went to sleep. this morning at 6am, however, the fax decided to start trying again. i refused to get out of bed to unplug the phone this time, though, instead shutting my bedroom door and turning my humidifier to high. when i woke up the fax machine had left 3 screeching messages on my answering machine.

i stood there in my underwear, phone in my hand, sleepy but determined to solve this fax problem once and for all. *6-7, i dialed. nothing. *6-7 again. nothing.

"did you try to star-6-9 it?" michael asked me this morning. "you can get the fax number that way and fax them to tell them to stop faxing you."

"oh," i said. "no. i tried calling star-6-7."

"that's for making it show up as unavailable when you call someone."

dammit. so i spent $1.50 (or more) making sure that this fax machine had no idea who was calling. dammit.