Don't call me, I'll call you.

And so once more into the breach we go. Hopefully in a couple of weeks it will be into the beach we go. But for now we must work. And so, here is yesterday's column. Hope you enjoy.

A MILLION MILES FROM NORMAL – By Paige Nick
EVERY KIND OF RING, EXCEPT AN ENGAGEMENT RING.

This story recently broke in the news about a forty two year old Dutch woman who was charged with stalking after she called her ex boyfriend 65 000 times over a period of a year.  

They might have a problem if the case gets as far as a conviction, since they won’t be able to fingerprint her. I doubt she has any prints left on her fingertips after all that button pressing.

And imagine her phone bill? When you’re in a relationship, particularly one of those soppy all-consuming new ones, one expects to have a slightly elevated telephone account, what with all those extra calls to say ‘hi’, and ‘good morning’ and ‘good later morning’ and ‘oh how I missed you between 10:05 and 10:11 when your phone was out of signal’. As well as those endless conversations that go on late into the night, ‘no you put down first, no you put down first, no you put down first’, so a few extra calls are to be expected, but this is ridiculous.

I imagine the poor guy never had a chance, even if he had wanted to try to return one of her calls. He probably couldn’t ever get through to her because her line must have been constantly engaged. And when he never called her back she must have just become more obsessed with calling him, it was a vicious ring cycle.

By my mathematics, which is dodgy at best and shocking at worst (so I can only guarantee general accuracy here), assuming this lady slept an average of seven hours a night, and took a little time off to eat, paint her nails, smoke a joint (she’s Dutch, so I’m just speculating here) and go to the loo every now and then, I figured out that she must have called this guy around a hundred and seventy eight times every single day, Monday through Sunday. That’s ten times an hour.

Forget her ex-boyfriend, her boss must be pissed, he should be the one pressing charges. Where in amongst all that calling did she find the time to do any work? Unless she’s a receptionist, then I suppose it was all just an extension of what she does all day anyway.

Time is a funny thing. There are never enough hours in the day, what with all the schlepping and carrying and shopping and feeding and working we have to do to keep the world turning. Yet somehow we do seem to manage to find the time for the little things that are important to us or make us happy. For example, just last week was such a crazy busy week, I was way, way, way too busy to sort out my stupid taxes, I did however manage to tweet 68 times. So I guess time, particularly available time, is all relative.

When questioned by the police our Dutch lady friend with the itchy dialling finger said that she didn’t think her actions were all that excessive. The gentleman she was calling on the other hand, didn’t necessarily agree with her. In fact he flat out denied that they’d ever even had a relationship. The third party in this relationship, the Dutch lady’s cell phone service provider, reported utter devastation at the resulting restraining order she received and offered to hook her up with a list of friends they hoped she might be interested in. She said she’d be sure to call them back and let them know.