Benny Jay: Entertaining Ourselves

Big Mike and I are on the phone going over the fine details of launching our blog site.

A million, zillion people in the universe are launching blog sites everyday, but for us it's an impossible ordeal. I think Bill Gates built Microsoft in less time than it's taking us to launch this baby. The only man in the universe more ignorant about computers than Big Mike and me is Milo, the other stooge in this enterprise. Thank God he's not on this line or we'd be spending needless hours trying to explain this stuff to him.

As it is, Big Mike's in the middle of yet another labyrinth explanation of the latest chapter in this ongoing clusterfuck, and I have absolutely no clue as to what he's talking about so I keep ask extraneous questions that take him on tangents.

Then my other phone rings.

Usually, I'd just let it go. But, a.) I'm expecting a call from my buddy Rick, and b.) I think Big Mike could use a break from my endless stupid questions.

So I say: "Hold it right there, Big Feller." And I take the call.

"Hello," I say.

Pause. Then an unfamiliar male voice says: "Who just called me?"

There's an edge of suspicion to his tone. Like somehow I did something wrong, when, in fact, I did nothing wrong. Cause -- after all -- it was he just who called me!

So I say: "Who are you?"

Man, George Bernard Shaw himself couldn't come up with a wittier retort.

He mumbles, all indignant like: "Must be the wrong number." Then, click, he hangs up. No, sorry for taking your time. Or, my bad, I messed up.

I tell Big Mike what happened and for some reason it tickles our collective funny bone. It's hard to explain why we find this so funny. Perhaps it's cause the world is so unrelentingly miserable that we have to find ways of entertaining ourselves. But, whatever, we're going over the exchange again and again, analyzing its every detail, and we can't stop laughing.

Little do I know, but my younger daughter's in the next room. She must have been reading or something, cause she walks out in a huff, like my gales of laughter have interrupted her and she says: "Oh, my god -- how can you think that's funny?"

I ignore her and I tell Big Mike about the time I got a phone call from a lady who heard me say hello. "And then she goes: "Who's this?"

He's roaring.

"And I go: `Who's this? Who are you? You called me....'"

Big Mike stops laughing long enough to say: "How can she possibly think that's the right response to dialing the wrong number? This can't be the first time she dialed a wrong number and heard a strange voice on the line. When she did it before, did someone say, `This is Harry, who are you?'"

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha....

"Or, `Well, I'm glad you asked -- I've been wondering myself. I'm having an identity crisis....'"

Identity crisis! It's too much.

I'm howling. He's howling.

My daughter walks past the room. "Are you still talking about that?" she says in disbelief.

I want to call her a hater but I can't get the words out, I'm laughing so hard.

"Oh, my god," she says. "You and your friends are so weird...."