Had another one of Life’s surprises spring up on me again this morning.
Was camping on the floor (since Aisya stole my bed again) and had fallen asleep on my sejadah when the phone rang. Crawled to it. Caller ID display: Private Call. Oo-k.
"Hello?"
"Hey Lubna."
Who? Oh right, me. Note that I was dishevelled, disoriented, and still very sleepy.
"Um, hello."
"How are you?"
"I’m…good. Who is this?"
"You don’t know who this is?"
"Yeah, sorry, I don’t."
" Oh, but I know you."
Hm. Sounds familiar.
"Right."
God, don’t you just hate it when you talk in the morning and your voice sounds so off-focus and thick?
"So, my dear, do you know who this is?"
What the-? This guy’s kidding me, right? Apa nak berdear-dear ni?
"No, I don’t. What time is it?"
Yeah, that’s me for you. Ask a complete stranger the time.
"I dunno…7.30? 8.00?"
I finally find my watch and check. 8.00am.
"So sweetie, really, how are you?"
Rolls over and stares at phone.
"Um…confused…"
"How come?"
"Because I’m on the phone with a complete stranger at 8am."
He laughs. I get annoyed.
"Oh come on, take a guess."
"I’m….drawing a blank."
He laughs again. Ok, that’s it.
"Lubna, it’s me Feruze."
Bomb drops, I sit up quickly and start laughing.
My cousin whom I haven’t seen for quite a long time had just wasted 3 minutes making ridiculous small talk with me on a long-distance phone call, all the way from Manchester. ‘Surprised’ would be an understatement since relatively, we weren’t really that close. But I was happy to hear from him. Abg, Feruze, give Z a call too yeah, nanti dia marah. It was great talking to him, and listening to him talk about being able to rub shoulders with the Man U stars. Man, did that phone call brighten up my day.
Last night’s phone call though was unbelievably, ridiculously long. That’s it. If Khairie makes it alive in settling his phone bills, I’m making sure we talk 30 minutes tops. I still have the image of Aisya making exasperated sounds in the background, yelling to Yani ‘what on Earth do they talk about that takes soooo long?’. Yeah, the ‘gayut’ syndrome. I am so going to work to get rid of this newfound bad habit of mine.
Ok, so how sad is this? I’ve just checked my Reminder’s List…’Go To The Doc’. Like the coughs weren’t enough to remind me. Thankyou to everyone who pestered me to go to the clinic, I know you guys meant well and I appreciate it…but I think I’ll postphone for just another day.
Or two.
Enough said here.
