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I've always felt as though there are certain phone call cut-off times. You know - people shouldn't be calling too early or too late unless it is an emergency. For example, I never call any of my friends before 10 AM or after 9 PM unless it is something vital (and with me it is never vital). However, this belief has led my brain to conclude that if my phone ever rings too early or too late it can only be bad news on the other end of the line, because why else would anyone be ringing me up so late? This can be quite an issue because not all of my friends have signed this social contract and have no problem calling me up at midnight just to ask me what the villain's name was in "Con Air". Now, because most of my friends are night owls, I have slowly but surely been able to catch on that they most likely aren't calling with bad news no matter how late it is. But that still leaves me to deal with really early morning phone calls which immediately fill me with a sense of dread.

This morning my cell phone started buzzing at me at 5:30, a full hour and half before I had set my alarm to go off. After a few seconds of trying to convince myself otherwise I finally acknowledged that there was no one else in my bedroom it could belong to, so yes, it was my phone and my responsibility to answer it. The few steps it took to reach my phone were filled with all sorts of scenarios of who the hell was calling me this early. It was my cellphone and not the landline, which narrowed the possibilities slightly. My imagination was not helped by the fact that the caller ID just said "Massachusetts", which often shows up when you call from a hospital in the area (don't ask me how I know this). However, before I had a chance to open my phone it stopped ringing. Basically, it had just rung long enough to wake me up. I gave it a second to see if they would call back or leave a voicemail, but neither happened. I tried going back to bed, but it just wasn't going to happen.

As I laid in bed, tossing and turning I found myself getting annoyed. Not only because I was woken up so early but because I had a late Sunday, I was really tired and yet I still couldn't fall back asleep. Of course, I blamed all these problems and more (including global warming) on my anonymous wake-up caller. I mean, if you are going to call and wake me up, the least you could do is leave a message. After a half an hour of failing to find a comfortable spot in my bed I gave up and decided to check my email. But, once I was online I couldn't help but doing a reverse look-up of the number through the phone book. (Mostly to make sure it wasn't from a private doctor's office or anything.) Turns out it was just a local landline and the person most likely dialed the wrong number. For about five seconds I contemplated calling them back and asking them what was so damn important at this early hour, but chickened out. I just hope whoever they called at the correct phone number asked them for me.