Sometimes a person finds themselves in a situation that reaches a new level of awkwardness. I was graced by one of the situations last week, and felt that I should pass along the awkwardness that ensued.
(Preface: Without getting into too much detail, I haven’t talked to my middle brother since Dec. 2004.)
My middle brother’s birthday was on Monday of last week, and I decided it was high time I call him. So I asked around trying to get his new phone number. Alas, no one had it. So I resorted to stalking my middle brother on the Internet, trying to guess as to where he is living now in a futile attempt to narrow down the multitudes of people who share his name to a manageable few. This task was made slightly more difficult by the fact that my 30 year old brother is a fabled creature that should be studied by crypto-zoologists everywhere. It appears that my brother has yet to plug into the World Wide Web. I know that you are all thinking that such people don’t exist, that believe in such nonsense would be like saying that Big Foot and Nessie are real. Well friends, you should believe…it’s a strange world out there. But I digress.
Needless to say I was having some difficulty tracking down a number for said brother. And then it hit me…I’m friends with his ex-wife on MySpace. They have a kid together, so they have to have some sort of contact, right? This revelation let me to awkward encounter #1 of this story. I MySpaced his ex-wife, made a little small talk, and then asked her “So, I’m about to ask you the most awkward question ever, but I was wondering if you had [my brother]’s phone number.” My ex-sister-in-law is a doll, and replied, “I don’t have his number, but I do have his new wife’s. It’s 555-555-5555.”
So, if you look at that sentence above, you will notice that the new wife’s name isn’t mentioned. And that isn’t because I’m choosing to leave it out for privacy reasons. She didn’t give it to me. And this situation is already so awkward that I can’t write back and be like, “Do happen to know the new wife’s name?” It’s a little sad that I don’t know it already. So, I call my sister to see if she knows my brother’s new wife’s name. No dice…which leads to awkward encounter #2.
So I was bracing myself for having to call a woman I don’t know, whose name I don’t know, and have an extremely awkward conversation. Luckily for me, she didn’t answer and I got to leave a message. The following is the message I left. (I should mention that her voicemail intro was some kids screaming. There was no “This is Barbie and I’m not available, leave a message”, because that would be too easy. That would tell me her name before I had to leave a message, and we all know that takes all of the fun out of these situations.)
“Hi. Ummm…this is Jessica, I’m [brother]’s little sister. I got your number from [your husband’s ex-wife]. I’ve been trying to get in touch with him to wish him a happy birthday, but I’m not having much luck. So if you could tell him to call me that would be great. My number is 555-555-5555. Thanks!”
3 Comments
July 23, 2008 at 11:11 am
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July 29, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Yes, I’d say that’s awkward! Did you ever hear back??
July 30, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Yeah, my brother called me later and that conversation was as uncomfortable as tracking down his number. It’s strange how different we have all turned out. I love him, but we are just very different people with very different lives and we don’t really speak the same language. Well, we both speak English, but you know what I mean.