Ring Ring

 

Brrr! Brrr! Brrr! Brrr! Brrr!

           The telephone is ringing.

 

"Susan, answer the phone before I electrocute myself, trying to cut it off!"

          

Patricia nods to the beat of the music in her headphones and ignores her husband.

 

Brrr! Brrr! Brrr! Brrrr!

The phone continues ringing.

 

Seth, still in bed, covered his ears and sighed."If that damn telephone rings once more. I swear I'll cut its voice out!" he told himself while his wife continued to ignore him.

 

Brrr! Brrr! Brrrrr! Brrrrr!

 

Seth pulled two cushions over his ears. He had tried tying them shut with elastic bands, but they had snapped.

 

"Susan!" He shouted.

 

"I'M NOT DEAF!" Susan shouts back.

 

"Answer the Fucking phone!" he told her.

 

"Look, I've lost my earphones now!" Susan complained.

 

"Yeah...Earglue, more like!" Seth replied sarcastically.

 

Susan shrugged. Placing her earphones back in her ears, she continued nodding to the beat of music.

 

Seth took an earphone out of her ear and directly shouted into it,

 

"THAT'S NOT THE TELEPHONE!" Susan replied,

 

"Why do you need me to answer the phone? I never answer it. Several days ago, caller ID showed a call from an old friend. The problem was that the friend died last year, so I knew it was a scammer. If the call is important, it will go to the answering machine.”

 

Seth threw a tantrum; out of annoyance, he ripped the telephone out. He didn't say a word all day after that. “Why don’t you get a cell phone? You can turn the annoying ringing off.”

 

"Ah, it's quiet now," Susan told him, but he just sat there with lips pursed and ignored her.

 

While Seth was leaving the room, Susan plugged the phone back in.

 

Ten minutes later, Seth got up, dressed, and returned to the room. Susan put her earphones back in and nodded to the beat.

 

Brrrr! Brrrr! Brrrr! Brrrr!

The telephone started ringing again.

 

"For fuck sake, not again!"Seth complained.

 

Susan carried on nodding to the beat of the music.

 

"Susan! ANSWER THE DAMN PHONE! Seth shouted at the top of his voice.

 

Susan took her headphones out and asked, "What Phone?"

 

"That Phone!" Seth snapped, pointing at the phone on the table.

 

"It's not ringing!" Susan replied, sticking her headphones back in.

 

Seth sighed and checked the phone. He knew that it was ringing. He could hear it.

He examined the phone. He gave it a shake and put the phone near his ears.

There was no sound. He put the telephone back on the table.

 

Brrrr! Brrrr! Brrrr!

There was that sound again!

 

Susan took her headphones out and started laughing.

 

"The phone's not ringing. You won't know that because you're talking too much!" Susan told him.

 

“That's it. I'm out of here!" Seth replied. Before leaving, he ripped the phone from the wall and put it in the trash.

 

Seth came home from a pub extremely drunk that night. Earlier, he went to the Verizon store and purchased the latest version of the iPhone. It cost almost a thousand dollars. He realized that no one had the new phone number and the landline did not exist anymore, so they would have to inform all their relatives and friends, who would need to be notified. He didn’t care. The ringing would be gone.

 

As a joke, he recorded a ringtone for the new phone. It said, “Susan, answer the damn phone.” He would mute a ringtone later.

 

 

He could still hear the phone ringing when he stumbled back into the house. He looked around and found the answering machine hidden behind the couch. He picked it up and went out and put it in the trash.

 

“Now the ringing is gone,” he said to himself.