Obsession Has No Shelf Life

Submitted by Doug:

I had just arrived home from work.  My live-in girlfriend and I were preparing for dinner when my phone rang.  It was an out-of-state number that I didn't recognize.

I answered.

Breathing.

"Hello?  Hello?" I asked repeatedly.

Then, "Doug."

A vaguely familiar woman's voice.  I cycled through the potentials.  A relative?  A long-lost friend?

"Who's calling?" I asked.

"I'm back here, Doug.  I just had to call you.  I'm back.  Here."

I had a dinner to prepare and a girlfriend to do.  "I'm glad to hear it.  You're going to have to identify yourself, or I'm going to have to hang up."

"Doug, just give me a minute."

"Who is this?"

"Doug."

I hung up.  A little freaky, but I assumed that it was a friend, messing around.  Then, my phone rang again.  Same number.

I answered.  "Who is this?"

"You know who this is."

"I don't."

"You forgot me?"

I jettisoned "relative" and "long-lost friend" and replaced them with "insane asylum inmate" or "jilted former lover."

I said, "You'll have to tell me who you are, or I'm hanging up and not picking up again."

"It's okay.  I can leave messages on your phone all night.  A fitting way to commemorate what I can't believe you don't remember."

"Give me a hint.  Where are you?"

"The mall."

"And how long has it been?"

A pause.  Then, "Ten years today.  Happy anniversary."

Oh, I remembered, all right.  It was Shelly, my first college girlfriend.  We lost our virginity to each other.  She was clingy as all hell and ended up being crazy as sin.

Once, I was at an airport, going away to see some relatives, and she called me, swearing up and down that there was an emergency.  I left the airport to drive back to her place, missing my flight, and found out that the emergency was that she had wanted to give me one more parting kiss.

I broke up with her over that.

I wasn't sure what the significance of the mall was.  We had sex for the first time in my dorm room.  Our first kiss had been in a parking lot.  I just couldn't remember that.

Recalling all of these things (and more) in a fraction of a moment, I replied the only thing that I could, given the circumstances.

"I'm sorry.  I think you have the wrong Doug."

I hung up and set the phone on silent.  She called back five times, leaving messages four out of those five.  I deleted each without listening.  She hasn't called back since.

Spooky.