Small town Sunday morning

Bill picked up the phone at about 10 o'clock yesterday morning and the woman on the other end asked him, "Why are you such an asshole?" Not sure what was going on, Bill replied, "Well, there are a few people here. Who were you trying to reach?"

Bill and Pat and Karl were watching Dick Cheney Face the Nation in Pat's unit; I was reading Willa Cather in ours. The thought crossed Bill's mind that it could Karl's daughter Nellie somehow making fun of her Dad. But no, that was not her voice. "I think you must have the wrong number," he said.

The woman laughed nervously, "I'm so embarrassed."

"Well you don't need to be," replied Bill, "cause I'm new in town and don't recognize your voice. I don't know who you are."

The woman hung up. Relieved, I'm sure. See there are only about 30 telephones in Matfield Green, and they all start out 620 753-43**. And I'm pretty sure that those 30 or so 753 numbers are the only numbers she could reach without having to dial the area code first. So almost anyone else in town would have been able to identify the caller.

Of course almost anyone else in town would probably also have had a reasonably good idea just exactly why the person she was calling deserved to be called an asshole.

So much to learn.