A few weeks ago, we got a call on the landline at 6:00 in the morning. The phone is on my side of the bed, so I woke up, fumbled, and answered it. (Yes, I can use the phone despite my hearing loss, but I hate it.) The caller said something in Russian and hung up, so I went back to sleep.

A few minutes ago, the phone rang, and it seemed to be the same caller. They said (in English) “are you happy?” I said, “what?” They said “uh…are you happy?” I said, “what?” And they hung up.

The phone promptly rang again – mind you, we get calls on the landline about twice a month – so I answered it again…but this time I said “Allo?” Which of course is French for “hello” on the phone. They said “we got disconnected!” And there ensued a very bizarre conversation. I mostly spoke in French, and they mostly answered in English, but when they said “Do you speak Russian?” I answered “Nyet!” So we ended up speaking in Russian a little bit, but mine is extremely limited – I can understand more than I can speak, but even that’s not saying much. I did catch them saying that my Russian wasn’t very good. There were definitely a couple of people on the line, and of course :A: came over to listen in and then went to the other room and picked up an extension. She must have had it on mute, because I could hear her laughing uproariously but not through the phone.

So yeah, that was amusing. He told me he was Barack Obama, then tried to tell me that Obama was sitting next to him. I told him (in French) that he was calling Canada, and I hoped he had a good long-distance provider. He told me he was from Iran, and at one point I asked him if he was gay just to hear him protest. (Actually I said homosexuel because that is a cognate into English.)

I have no idea who it was, I assume they were drunk dialing, even though they asked at one point for “Farrah” – whatever it was, it was amusing. The caller ID only showed “Unavailable” so I’ll never know who it was.