The 4AM calls are usually bad news. Glad this one was good.

I have, twice.

Once was in Denver; it was one of my friends in Malaysia who didn't realize the timezone difference. I was already jetlagged as it was, so poor dude got a really ticked off woman on the other end of the line.

The second time was in Brisbane - a friend called to let me know that he broke up with his girlfriend, who was also a close friend of mine (I knew both from different circumstances and actually inadvertently brought the two together). They had been arguing a lot and I was always the "surrogate partner", listening to both their rants while wondering why *I'm* the one hearing all this, instead of the intended recipient. My friend was rather distressed when he called; it was the first time I had those "3am friend" calls.

I got those all the time when hubby (then fiance) was in the Navy. He'd call me from all over the world whenever he got the chance. The really fun ones were the ones from MARS

/over

I've only had the post evening/pre-morning calls a few times, but my heart started racing each time. They've always been wrong numbers or, in one case - a fax!!! I think I got so wound up so quickly it took about an hour each time to fall back asleep.

lysdexic - I don't think you're supposed to be sharing with the general public that the Navy is sending men to Mars. I don't think we're supposed to know that....yet.

Yep, a few hours after the planes hit the buildings on 9/11 (which meant that it was 4amish NZ time). My then-boyfriend's friend's brother was on an AA flight that day. It was the most awful mix of surreal and horrifying.

The one time I got a 4 am phone call, I wasn't home, so she left a message. It was some woman in Texas drunk dialing, or something--she was calling everyone in my city with my name, looking for some great guy she'd met, really, really enthusiastic about leaving a message, because THIS one has to be the right one, right?!? I was pretty glad I hadn't been home.

But the woman sounded cute, and she sounded sincere and friendly, so being the altruistic guy that I am, I decided to, this time on a Sunday afternoon, call the guys in the phone book with my name. It was kind of fun, at first: "Hi, John Smith? Yeah, you don't know me, but I'm named John Smith, too. Yeah, weird, huh? So, I got this phone message the other night…" My namesake cut me off, with a testy "Yeah, I got the same call, but I was actually home, in bed, asleep, with my wife."

So I guess it wasn't very fun for him. I decided I didn't need to make any more calls.

My mother would have killed me for calling at 4am to say I was home safe. Oh, she would have been awake and wondering, but she would have killed me for not waiting until 6am.

The other day, when I was on the morning commuter bus around 7:00, my cell phone rang (well, it vibrated and since I had my earphones in, I only knew it was ringing because I happened to be looking in my bag for my lipgloss anyway). It was my mom, someone had called them at 4am and left a weird incomplete message but mom refrained from calling to make sure it wasn't me (and that I was home safe where I'm supposed to be at 4am) until 7. Why she didn't call my sister first thing in the morning to make sure she wasn't the one trying to call home while being kidnapped, I'll never know.

Now, Slack-a-gogo, you can't be seri-

*calls lysdexic to make sure everything's all right*

We have... drunk friends calling from the U.S., usually.

For many years I worked the overnight shift (11 pm - 7 am), and would have drunk friends calling me AT WORK, esp. on the weekends. "Hi, yeah, it does sound like you're having a great time. Gotta go."

My mother would have killed me for calling at 4am to say I was home safe

Well, how else was he gonna get in the house if I didn't let him in? ;-)

Oh, the detail I left out:

When I picked up the phone, he said something along the lines of "Hi, mom, remember that friend of mine who was pulled for speeding that they threw in jail?" I was expecting he was calling me from the grey bar motel....that turkeybutt.

I did, this weekend, but I've only got a cell phone, and I leave it downstairs. It was my good friend calling to say that he'd just found out his dad had died. I'm broken up that I didn't hear the phone ringing.

Heavy breathers. Gawd, the first time I got one, I asked him if he was my boyfriend, Palmer, at least 5 times. Palmer could do some random and confusing stuff, maybe not realizing that would scare me, but no, not him. Then I felt yucky for speaking in a nice and girlish way to the lech for all those faptastic seconds.

I've had a few, but the only one that merits a story (which I may already have posted here at some point) was when I was in my early 20s, dating a trainwreck and almost at the point of throwing him out. We'd had a horrific fight and he'd stormed out to get hammered somewhere. (ah, the punk days. How did we afford to be so intoxicated so often?) I had to work at 8:30, so went to bed early. Phone rang at about 2 or 3 am. "Hi, honey, it's me." "Fuck off." /me slams down receiver. Cop to him: "Wow. I guess you're really popular there. Back to the tank, son."

That said, I'm glad yours was such good news, bunnyfire. He's a bit of a prankster, your son. ;)

oh yeah, the 4AM phonecall... my batshitinsane, bipolar selfmedicating alcoholic x was the one who finally put me into the habit of shutting off my phone at night, bleh.

Prior to his insanity, back when I was coaching a juniors' cycling team, one of our kids had some serious, serious family issues. My partner at the time and I couldn't do much about his dysfunctional family except to give the kid a key to our back door and tell him he was allowed to call / come over / crash on our couch anytime day or night, on the condition that he was never a) drunk or b) in jail when he called. Luckily (I guess) his parents didn't ever give a shit where he was, so thankfully we didn't inherit their drama, and aside from being a bit hyper / anxious (who wouldn't be?) he was always a good kid. He's now a successful businessman, and I'd like to think we did a little corrective parenting-by-proxy, despite that at the time we were only in our mid-20s. Eh, maybe surrogate aunt/uncle is a better analogy?

whatever, I'm glad we did it.

ous!


Hey, taz! Whassup?

I recently figured out which of my sororal twin cousins drunk-dialed me last year. She never owned up, but I decided to drop it.

I used to often get text messages at all hours of the night/morning from some poor woman who missed her boyfriend and wasn't shy about saying how she missed him (or which bits). After a few times of replying to the effect that she had the wrong number, I started replying to them in "other" ways. I sometimes wondered about the odd conversations that must have ensued between the two.