Hate

There are many, many things I hate.

Probably far too many than are healthy for me - certainly too many than are healthy for society. Many of these hatreds I can contain and, unless you are a devotee of Tim Roth's alleged use of 'micro-gestures', I would challenge most people to even be aware of them. This is odd, because I'm useless at Poker.

However, this is not always the case.

For example, there are circumstances that not only prevent the masking of hatreds, but, quite the opposite, seem to exacerbate and amplify them beyond reason (assuming of course that they are reasonable in the first place) to the extent that they take over. The most obvious of these circumstances in when I am encased in a small metal box, with an engine and controls supposedly designed to get me where I am meant to be more quickly.

More quickly than what? Teleportation? Have you SEEN the amount of traffic on the road these days, huge numbers with foreign number-plates so they can avoid paying road tax or.......

Ok, and breeeeeeath..........

However, this post is not about the hatreds that emerge when I'm driving. That would take too long and you'd never reach the end. No, this post is about the hatred that emerges when I am in bed.

(Before you leave, no, it's not about anything like that. This is a 12 certificate post).

This is my hatred of phones that ring in the night. Or rather, the three hatreds related to phones that ring in the night.

Firstly, I hate phones that ring in the wee hours. It is never good news. Never. It is never a long lost cousin in Tierre del Fuego telling you you have just inherited an estate in Monte Carlo and the Mona Lisa. So, when it rings, my heart plummets as, simultaneously, my stomach tries to escape through my sinuses. Not a nice feeling, although I could probably get a Cadbury's advert out of it if I could do it to order.

I had a call like this the night my Father died.

So, when the phone rings in the wee hours, I know I am not going to be pleased, whatever happens.

So, I hate it when the phone rings in the wee hours. That's number one.

Secondly, I hate when, having been jarred from, hopefully pleasant, dreams, you fumble for the phone, knocking glasses of water (sans teeth thank goodness), alarm clocks, pots of cufflinks and a pile of intellectually challenging books that you fully intend to read - one day - flying. I hate it even more when, along with the assorted detritus, you also knock the phone flying.

What I hate even more however is, when you finally find the phone, find which side and end is meant to be next to your ear and work out how to answer it, a process which seems to take hours, but in fact only takes a few dischordant rings, you manage to answer it, only for there to be no-one there.

Not, I stress, to find they have hung up. That is without doubt annoying, but no, this I would suggest, is worse.

What I hate is when you find that, having finally mastered the process of answering the phone, there is nobody there responding to you. You can tell the line is not dead - there are faint noises of speech in the background, but nobody responds to your increasingly shrill cries of "hello! HELLO!". Finally, as your voice reaches the pitch at which bats fall from the sky in distress, you hang up in discuss, place the phone back on the table, knocking it and any remaining accumulated rubbish to the floor, roll over and try, rather too hard, to recover the dream that, unusually, was rather vividly in your memory. I hate people who call in the middle of the night but don't speak to you.

However, what I think I hate most of all, is when the following morning, you remember the incident and determine to put your full investigative skills to work in tracking down the miscreant.

You find the phone amongst the rubbish on the floor.

You dial 1471 to find the last caller's number.

The robotic (yet strangely authoratitive) voice reads the number to you and, as always, you wonder if Stephen Hawking uses this as a chat-line?

You frown, vaguely recognising the mobile phone number you've been given. You dial 1471 a second time, to hear it again. Yes. You know it. You can't place it, but you know it. You run through a mental check-list. Kids. Nope. Mum. Look it up (she never turns it on so you never call it)- nope. Ex - nope. Brother - errr - nope.

So who IS it???

And then you remember.

You know why you never call this number.

It's because it's your number.

So, the thing I hate most about phones that ring in the night is when you leave your mobile on the bed and, in the throes of a dream, roll onto it, inciting it to ring the last number called. Your number. Last called because, as always, you couldn't find the landline handset.

The thing I hate most is when you roll onto your phone, call yourself in the wee hours, hears yourself saying "hello, HELLO!" in the background, and finally go back to sleep cursing yourself for your inconsideration.

So, I hate phones that ring in the night.

But I hate being a dingbat more.