"Hello," I said quickly after dropping the phone a couple times. "Are you alright?" The caller asks.

"Yeah (cough, snort, hack), I'm fine. Hold on a second... (in the background, a recliner lever pops and loud gulping sounds can be heard. Then the receiver rattles and bangs off the table again). What can I do you for? Er, I mean, what can I do for you?"

"Were you asleep?" The caller asks, chuckling lightly. Something in my voice must have given me away.

"No, I'm not asleep. I was just resting my eyes. The darn telephone keeps waking me up."

Now there's an original lie, I realize as the caller chuckles a little more. I was just resting my eyes - I got that from my father, who sometimes falls asleep sitting up in his chair in the living room these days.

He often has a mouth full of Levi Garret and a milk jug in the floor beside him. I think he can hit it without even picking it up sometimes, but not if my mother is looking. She used to make him pick up those little pieces that fall out of your hand when you are packing your jaw full, but she doesn't do that anymore. Now she makes him go out on the porch (even if he is barefoot) if he wants a chew.

The man never falls asleep sitting up in the chair, if you ask him. He just "rests his eyes." He may be snoring, he might be slumped over, he might have a thin brown line of tobacco juice trailing down to his shirt, but he is not asleep, he's alert as a stalking lion, feigning sleep so that he can conserve energy and pounce without warning - or yawn and stretch, whichever proves necessary.

Nor was I asleep, using that rationale. I looked down at the book I had been reading, A Prince Among Slaves. I had conveniently book marked it with a puddle of drool while I was "resting my eyes." Wonderful. If I only had a chew of tobacco, I thought.

Then I remembered I still had the receiver in my hand. I may have even rested my eyes for another minute or two there. When I came around, I heard the person on the other end of the receiver saying, "Hello, Hello?"

It was only 10 p.m. or so, but I had gotten "valuable" in my favorite recliner, as a friend of mine favors saying. He got it from another friend's mother, who said it in referring to her children when they finally went to sleep after a hard day (for her). "Yeah, I'm here," I offered.

"Well, how are ya doing sleepyhead?" The person asks.

"I've been better, but I sure have been a whole lot worse," I commented. "How 'bout you?"

"I'm alright, just a little wored out," the caller said. "I just went down to see mom at the hospital, she's doing a whole lot better."

"Well, I sure am glad," I said. "But to tell you the truth, I didn't even know she was sick."

"I didn't call you? She just came down with this flu bug and then got a little dehydrated. The doctor was worried about pneumonia."

"Well, I sure am glad to hear that she's doing better," I said. "My mom had that same stuff and it took her a week or more to get over it."

"I heard that," the caller tells me. (There's another brilliant saying. Of course if you say, "I heard that," and they repeatedly respond with, "WHAT" or "HUH," the answer to the rhetorical question is no).

"Are you and Carol still coming over tomorrow night for supper?" The caller asks the question like I will just go ahead and say, "You betcha."

The question unexpected, at least on my end of the phone line. "Who in the heck is Carol?"

Laughter follows, "You better hope she don't hear you, you rascal you." "Who is this anyway?" I try.

More laughter. "Just be here around six, you know how the old lady gets when her supper gets cold. I'll talk to you then. I gotta run, she's back with the groceries. Bye." Click.

Holding the dead receiver, I try to recall. All I know is that I am supposed to take a woman named Carol, upon whom I have never lain eyes, to someone's house somewhere around here to have supper with a fellow and his "old lady," whom I have never met. I think I can handle that. The only thing that bothers me is that I didn't even ask him what we are having. I really hope it isn't lima beans. I like everything but those.

Give me a double serving of brussel sprouts, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli or any other vegetable, but you just keep those lima beans for yourself, if you don't mind.

I got up with a stretch, stumbled into the bathroom and then went to bed, not really even thinking about it.

The next morning, I was awakened again by the telephone. "May I speak to the man or woman of the house," the caller asks in what sounds like Egyptian. You know, if they are going to bother to call, it looks like they could find someone who speaks English. I know darn good and well it is long distance to Egypt from here.

"Hello," I say, rubbing my eyes. The clock refuses to come into focus.

"Werrr you slepinck?" The caller asks in his special 7-11 language.

"No, I was just resting my eyes."

The clock finally comes in to focus, the red numbers say 6:30 a.m. God only knows what time it is in Egypt, or wherever this guy is right now. He could be with that Terrorist American Telemarketers Association, TA-TA.

"I am calling for BankCard Iran with a special offer," the man tells me.

"Say, didn't we whip y'all in that war?" I query. He didn't understand. "I don't live here, I'm just robbing the place," I tell him. "You ain't the laws are you?" He still didn't get it.

"Hey, are you any kin to that wrassler The Iron Sheik?" Then he hung up on me. Imagine the nerve, a telemarketer hanging up on me. Maybe he really was the Iron Sheik, fallen from championship wrassler to pitiful Arabic telemarketer. I'm glad he was able to get a job with those shoes of his, but they should hire more normal folks. If the caller said, "Hey y'all. I'ma sellin light bubs. Y'all need ery'un?" I might buy something. But I guess telemarketers ain't got that much sense, else they'd get themselves a better job.

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