Annie and McSt. Patty's Day

One day can reveal a lot about a person. Usually, these are stories where someone faces death in the eye and doesn't blink or refuses to back down from their beliefs. This time, it comes from my friend who realizes who she is through bad connections with guys.

Last week, my friend Annie had a couple of days off for a change. Instead of wasting them cleaning the house or running errands, she wisely used her time to celebrate Patrick's Day of Sainthood. Now, as many Oklahoman's know, there is only one place to go for this auspicious holiday and she was there.

But let's step back a couple of days. Prior to that, Annie had contacted an old friend of hers whom she developed an interesting, if only because it was never really defined, relationship with. He was someone she could confide with and help her through the rough patches when needed. They hadn't really seen each other for some time because of conflicting schedules and private issues. But with the upcoming freedom in both their schedules falling on St. Patrick's Day, they agreed to do something. Her friend, whom we'll call Noah, said he'd contact Annie to set something up.

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If I wanted to add to the confusion I would toss in the neighbor friend whose live-in girlfriend decided to move to Chicago to pursue her career in musical theatre, despite musical theatre really being a New York thing, but that story disappeared before it even took off. We'll stick to the two guys for now.

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After running her errands the day before, Annie had the Tuesday off to celebrate her Irish heritage, although her family name is German. Joining with some friends in Norman, the small entourage proceeded to celebrate St. Patty's Day in traditional fashion with plenty of ale and lager and no regard to the next day. Of course, so did everyone else at the bar, leaving a clear absence of available seats.

Using her typical cunning, and a little bit of ingenuity, she managed to snag a table away from an unsuspecting group - we'll just leave the details out, however, to save face - and proceeded to allow new found friends to join. These friends were all in the military, and judging from the photos I will say they were NOT Navy - and of course one of them caught Annie's attention.

This man, whom we now call Chris McStPattysDay, or McSPD for short, had the typical military style going for him; clean cut, gentleman, heavy drinker. Each of the qualities my friend, and I presume most women on a holiday like this, would enjoy. As the day wore on into the night, my friend's frustration at Noah continues. Not only had Noah not contacted her to get together, but he hadn't contacted her about anything. Finally, Annie had had enough.

If you recall from an earlier story, Annie has had some experience with cell phones. Using her phone, she made it abundantly clear to Noah that his inability to call her, even to say he's too busy, had left a poor taste in her mouth. His response was a simple apology with no real explanation. This sent Annie off.

Now, Annie hadn't been the type of person to stand her ground lately. Her previous workplace took this once strong-willed woman and made a beaten soldier on the verge of PTSD. When someone told her she couldn't cut it, she'd apologize. When someone trampled over her, she'd let it be. Not anymore.

After hearing the non-apology from Noah, Annie ripped into him telling him that his inability to make plans or call to say it wasn't going to work out made him less of a man than he was before. There was little room left for Noah to wiggle out of, leaving him stranded in his ark for another 40 days.

Meanwhile, the night had ended in Norman and Chris McSPD had acquired his prize; the number to Annie's cell. Granted, this is nothing of an achievement these days as more and more women screen their calls to avoid the men they met the night before (a very wise move in many cases.) Nothing was made of the new number the next day. Everyone proceeded to work off their hangovers, walking gingerly in the office and whispering through the phone. It was Wednesday, however, that the cell phone's existence provided a little twist.

Most mornings, Annie awakes to her dog or an alarm clock. Wednesday morning, however, she woke up to a picture text sent from Chris McSPD. It wasn't a normal picture you'd receive, there were no sunrises or clever ways to ask one out for coffee with a picture of a coffee mug and a question mark. Instead it was a picture of, well, let's call it his miniature version of the Washington Monument.

Disgusted, Annie erased the picture text and refused to respond. By Friday, she had thankfully forgotten the offending picture and tried to relax with a girls night out. Unfortunately, Mr. McSPD didn't quite understand the reason behind a lack of response to his "artful" message. So, he sent another text. There were no photos with this message, just a declaration that he'd be out with his friends. I presume he announced his plans in the hopes that Annie would quickly respond her desire to join. This plan didn't quite work as Annie merely erased the message and went about her evening.

A week later, with no word from Chris McSPD, Annie and I were having a conversation. Now, Annie would say she enjoyed her conversation whereas I would argue that it was nothing more than a dressing down of my faults, of which there are many. During this conversation, Chris McSPDhad texted again. This time he asked what Annie was doing that night. It was good to see the evolution of one person over the course of 10 days, from primeval photos of himself to implied invites to actual questions. Unfortunately for him, he lost any chance of getting to know Annie with the initial message.

To make sure the boy got the message right, Annie replied to "What are you doing tonight?" with "Not you." And left it at that. McSPD, in an effort to save what little face he had, replied back that there was no reason to be mean, he just wanted to know what she was doing. There is a need to save face, which we've all done in our lives, and there is a need to cut your losses and move on. This was not the former in any way. When Annie pointedly explained the problem of him sending pictures of Mini McSPD, the boy got the message and replied that he was deleting her number from his phone.

While there were promising moments for both gentlemen to achieve more than a conversation with Annie, they both failed to properly utilize the cell phone and fell flat on their face. But more importantly than learning how a phone should work, the story brought about a greater end. Annie's self-confidence had returned. In the time span of one day, St. Patrick's Day, Annie re-discovered how to stand her ground, refusing to let old friends walk over her and denying the advances of bad acquaintances.

In the end, finding the backbone always trumps dating new people. At least on a holiday like St. Patrick's Day.

"Do I Know You?" or "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again."

Technology can be fickle. Take cell phones. While this little gizmo has "freed us from our homes," in truth, they create leashes. We are never alone unless the phone is off, or out of range, and even then the thought of missing an important call throws us into a panic. The black books and date books have been replaced by contact lists and digital calendars. Our text messages become our modes of vital communications - including the all-important break up message (Its not U, its Me). And every person now has their own personal assistant, taking messages for us when we don't know who's calling or don't want to talk to whomever has the time to speed dial our number.

But what happens when you receive a text message from a mystery person? Usually, you ignore it, but sometimes you just play right along.

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A friend called me the other night. For her, the evening began with a random text message. The message itself was commonplace, but my friend - we'll call her Annie - decided to play along with the game.

Annie had called me wondering if I knew the number and, in turn, the person with whom she was texting. Unfortunately - or rather fortunately for the story that transpired - I did not. I tried looking up my numbers in my phone. I reverse-checked the number on a few websites. I even did a google search in the vain attempt at finding someone foolish enough to publicize their cell phone number (which this obviously was since Annie was texting with the person).

The messages the two had already exchanged revealed very little. Actually, we could only determine the person was male when he commented that he was trying to understand women - and what guy isn't?

My original suggestion of calling the person from my phone, to a number in another state, and listen for the voice mail and figure out the person's name did not go well.

"What if he answers?" Annie asked. Well, I would just ask for someone who obviously isn't there and apologize for dialing the wrong number. Needless to say we didn't take this approach.

There were attempts to find out more information. Annie asked how Christmas and New Year's went, only to find out New Year's was busy and Christmas was awkward with his sister bringing her boyfriend and the mystery man getting a guitar from the parents. So we could only narrow it down to guys with sisters and not musically inclined.

I had her ask about the guy's work, only to find out that work is slow. Still no clues here. This is when I brought up finding out directly through my original plan.

"But what if he's a guy I used to date and want to date him again?" she replied. How the two correlate, I have yet to figure out.

Granted, all of this could've been prevented if Annie used her cunning mind at the beginning of our scenario and asked who the person was straightforward. Most people do this, or ignore the text, when confronted with a number and no name. It's not rude, since the number is obviously not one we have used before. But, no. My friend didn't start thinking of asking our mystery person until later in the game. Each time, however, I had to remind her that it would not be wise to bluntly ask for his name since it would reveal holding a, now, lengthy conversation with someone we did not know.

As an alternative, however, I decided we should have Annie feign a bad phone, asking our John Doe to call her. She wouldn't answer the phone in this situation, so we'd either have a voice clue or he would provide his name. Granted, by this point, normal people would've given up and admitted to having no clue who was on the other end. But we are not normal. Nor was there a point of giving up. It was late at night and the mystery was puzzling.

Before we were able to enact our brilliant plan, Mystery X had asked about my friend's Christmas. When she responded her holiday's similarities to A Christmas Story, his response shed new light into the game. The man does not like the movie, and why should he? I think the movie is horrible, and could go into great detail about it's failures as a glimpse into Americana Christmas.

After a brief debate regarding this new information Operation: Lampshade (not my name) was enacted. Shortly after sending the message, Annie's phone was beeping in to another call, indicating that our ruse was working. It was only a matter of time before we could unmasked our friend.

Now, typically when a person dials a number to test out a phone's ability to receive incoming calls they will do one of two things. Either they will reach the person who's phone is in questions or they will leave a message providing evidence of the failed attempt. When you deal with our unknown entity you get a third option: no message. What can we do next? Do we call his bluff in not leaving a message, thus revealing the phone did work and we chose not to answer it for ulterior motives? No, we come up with a new plan.

When receiving the text confirming that our plan failed, it was time to establish a new method to our madness. We would reply back that Annie would check her voicemail to see if she could at least receive a message. When he responds that he didn't leave a message, we would then tell him to hold on. A few moments later, we would send another text message asking to call again since we have now reset our towers. Granted, by this point it has become absolutely apparent that we are losing our minds. But, we trudged on because, as Annie put it, "At this point, I'm addicted to the game."

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At what point did this become a game? After having lived through it, I'm still unsure how we went from trying to figure out who this person was to trying to come up with the most creative ways to discover his identity. Even the cell phone towers wasn't the most interesting. At one point, my friend actually said she was going to stop by some pay phone on her way to work the next morning, call the number up and listen for the guy's answer. She would keep silent, but listen to figure out the person's identity.

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We didn't get this far in the game, however. At some point in the chaos, Annie took an educated guess into who this might be and texted a possible mutual friend. When that person didn't respond, she started second guessing herself. But, before we enacted the continuation of our psychosis, I suggested she send a text saying "Wait, I thought I was talking to X," and see what would happen. Indeed, it turned out her guess was right and the mystery person now had a name. Of course, I still have no idea who this guy was, but it was entertaining to play along.