Dear Michelle

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• February 22, 2016

Dear Michelle,

You don’t know me, and I don’t know you.  You used to have my phone number.  I got my cell phone for Christmas when I was seventeen.  All my friends had cellphones for a couple years.  I was the last person to get a cell phone in my high school, I’m pretty sure.  The first phone call I received was for you, Michelle.  And now, almost ten years later, I’m still getting calls for you.

I probably get equally as many calls for you as I do for me.  Though that’s just a sad commentary on my social life.  You fascinate me, Michelle.  Really.  I’ve gotten calls from prisons and head trauma clinics.  And calls in the middle of night that go like this:

“Yo, I’m outside ya house.”
“What?”
“I’m outside ya house.  Lemme in.”
“Who is this.”
“It’s ya boy.”
“Um… I think you have the wrong number.”
“Michelle?”
“No, this is not Michelle.”

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve said, “no this is not Michelle,” I’d be able to cover my overpriced wifi for a half a year.  It costs $50 a month for wifi alone in Queens.  Did you know that, Michelle?  $50 a month.  That’s $600 a year.  That doesn’t even include cable.  It’s not even really good wifi.  I can’t afford to go out, because my wifi is so expensive.  Sometimes, I just sit at home watching youtube videos.  I don’t even want to do that.  I feel like it’s a waste of time, but if I’m going to spend $50 a month on wifi, I’m going to use it, damn it.  When I’m homeless, it will not be because of drugs.  I spend way less than $50 a month on drugs.  It will be because of wifi.  But I digress, Michelle, I digress.

Who are you, Michelle?  More importantly, what is your new phone number that seems to be a mystery to every one you know for nearly ten years?  Did you hit your head?  This head trauma place calls me a lot.  Did you get in an accident and give them your old phone number?  Who is calling you from prison?  Please tell your ex boyfriends to stop calling me.  Unless they’re hot.  Are they hot?  Give them my number.  Oh wait, they have my number.

I have to listen to my sets a lot, so I’m familiar with how annoying my voice sounds.  People never question that I’m you when I answer.  Do we have similar annoying voices?  Have you listened to your voice?  It’s hard for me, sometimes, to listen to my sets.  I just try to focus on the jokes.  The jokes I can fix, if needed.  My voice, I’m stuck with.  It’s not my fault my voice is nasally.  I’m congested a lot, because I have bad allergies and a deviated septum.  Do you also have a deviated septum?  Did that happen when you hit your head?

And I’m not changing my phone number.  Forget it.  I need this same phone number.  Important people in show business know my phone number.  Okay, maybe only two important people in show business know my phone number.  But I won’t change it, out of principle.  That, and I once received a phone call from 2026, and I need to keep this phone number until after that date.  This is very important to me.

Where are you, Michelle?  What do you look like, and what do you do?  Do you hate answering the phone?  I do.  I loathe it.  People don’t like talking to me on the phone either.  I mumble.  Talking on the phone gives me distress.  I don’t know why.  If I hear a phone ringing, it immediately triggers anxiety in me.  At work, it’s the worst.  Part of my job is to talk to people on the phone.  They yell at me for mumbling on the phone too.  They’re right, though.  It’s unprofessional.  I just want to never have to talk to people on the phone.  I prefer texting.  You know what’s weird?  Despite the volume of telephone calls I get for you, I’ve not once received a text for you.  Not once.  This is probably the most mysterious thing about you of all.

I hate getting phone calls so much, that when I hear my phone ring, I kind of hope it’s for you.  Because that’s a short conversation.

“Michelle?”
“No, you have the wrong number.”
“Oh, this isn’t Michelle?”
“No.”
“Okay.”

*Click*

Sincerely,

Not Michelle