Butt-Dialing, or, I’m sorry, Abigail…

DISCLAIMER: Today’s blog uses the word butt a lot of times. In a funny, good way, though.

Having played tennis most of my life, I am more than well aware that I have a good, nice, firm butt. Like, I could point my butt toward a bowl of walnuts and they’d crack immediately.  Out of pure-D respect.

I mean, facts are facts.

Now, I don’t often talk about my butt because a) it isn’t tasteful to do so, and b) I mean, look at it. I don’t really have to talk about it. It’s a little gift from Up Above (two, if you count my I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Butter legs) that I have somehow managed to take care of…where other things I let fall by the side.

That’s also a fact, I’m afraid.

The point is: I have, all in all, a magnificent butt.

And usually, I give it its due credit. When it behaves.

And I do what I can to take care of it; though I wish I could get out on the tennis courts more regularly, these days.  I frequent the gym (well, mostly just the tanning bed located at the gym); I’ve bought the specially designed Shape Up shoes that are meant to help aid and tone the buttocks area when doing mundane activities such as walking to the copier, grading papers, and racing your swivel chairs down the long, lonely hallway outside your office with a select few of your really cool colleagues.

Apparently, though, my butt had other ideas as to how it wished to spend its time: butt-dialing.

For starters, I have no qualms sharing with you the fact that I am not a fan of my own cell phone. As a matter of fact, next to Hitler, the pending Apocalypse, and people bad-mouthing the good honest work of Jamie Gertz on the ill-fated sitcom “Still Standing,” there is nothing I hate more than my Blackberry.

Had I only known at the time of purchase the sheer hatred I’d carry in my heart for that dreaded piece of smart plastic, I’d never have gotten it.  Had I further known the secret love affair my phone would have with my butt, I’d have taken the time to practice my once-perfect penmanship and reverted to that old art form known as letter writing.

However, I was already a Verizon contract-player, so I held out in the hopes that I was finally and successfully integrating myself into Modern Society by getting the next Big Thing in the world of cellular communication.

I have since 86’ed that notion.

I’m six months into my torrid relationship with the Qualcomm 3G CDMA model of the Blackberry Storm, and am more than ready for the clouds to clear. Of course, to ensure a proper storm passing, one must be ready to break the contract, and that costs a pretty penny.

At first, I took Blackberry aggravations in stride. Because the root of the problem seemed to be at hand: my hand. I hit everything but the right button and became accidentally more intimate with the Voice Activation Command than voice mail.

It was a real talent I had, there. I do everything backwards, I guess.

But, never did I expect that all along my beautiful butt was waiting for a chance to betray me.

I have, for as long as I can remember, never, never put items in my pockets. I couldn’t stand it. It felt so weighted to have coins, keys, the like, in my pockets.  So, why I ever started putting my phone in my pockets (front and back, mind you!) I simply cannot answer.  But, I did.

That’s when the trouble started.

I have to date butt-dialed twenty-two people. One person, my friend  Abigail, has been butt-dialed no less than six of those times. She’s the first name in my Address List. I can only imagine the strange, unintelligible messages she’s been left by my butt.

She did have the decency to call back, though, and leave a message for me, after the fourth butt-dial. “Kris, so good to hear from you, I hope everything’s OK, you’ve called a lot recently. Let me know.”

Bless her heart. (I hate you, Butt).

Back in the shameful days of my heavy drinking, I had a bad habit of “befriending” everyone at the bar. This led, of course, to many random exchanges of phone numbers. Some with real names assigned to them; others with, what I can only guess, were nicknames I’d given them at the time of the second or third round.

My butt knew this, and as payback, has also butt-dialed them. For kicks, I guess.  This has led to viciously punctuated text messages along the lines of WTF?!? Who is this?! and so on.

I’ve never been one to like a phone. I’m harder to track down with a cell than without. I just liked the convenience of a cell phone.  You know, in case I ever get lost backpacking through the Appalachians, my cell phone would have GPS; or, if I needed to immediately rifle through endless Facebook updates, then, Voila!, there’s my cell, ready and at the helm.

But for talking…I can do without that part, though, apparently, I don’t even have to worry about dialing should the need to talk to someone arise. My butt is more than happy to do it for me.

I don’t know how to prevent this, so instead, I keep my phone far, far away from me at all times, now. I let it ride in the passenger seat, seatbelt on, on my way to work.  I’ve put an extra chair in front of my desk, and there it sits all day, while I’m in my office. I don’t touch it unless I have to. 

Its ringer is on Vibrate because the other sounds scare me. I’m in search of a name to call this so I can at least have a viable diagnosis for this newfound phobia.

It’s not just butts you have to worry about these days, either. I have a chilling tale to share with you that involves another unbelievable betrayal.

Purse-dialing.

Several years back, I was driving a friend of mine and myself to a last-minute dinner, in town. We’d worked hard all day and were bent on rewarding ourselves with a tasty morsel or two in a local diner.

Two things had happened to her that week that she was eager to share with me: her cell phone purchase, and the introduction of a new man into her life.

She was ecstatic.

She was, however, still married.

We were barely a few miles down the road when a cat darted in front of my vehicle. We lurched forward in our seats, her purse fell from her lap, and the contents of it (and god were there contents of it) spilled all over the floorboard.

She picked them up, and continued talking—about the new man. In detail. Full. Graphic. Detail.

I did what I could to share her enthusiasm. I did what I could to not be judgmental. She was, after all, a grown woman.

Fate intervened, though. Because somehow in the course of dropping her purse and picking it up, the phone was dialed. The number? Her husband’s. Who then heard every word she had to say.

Now, that, my friends, is a confession. No?

Thank god I don’t have a purse because I’m having enough trouble with my butt.

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