An Open Letter to All Stupid People in the Universe

Someone called my cell phone in the middle of Saturday night and left a long, obscene message on my voice mail. Based on the giggling I could hear in the background, they and their friends clearly found themselves hilarious. I am not laughing, and am in fact in the process of tracking down the number that called so that I can report them to the authorities. In the meantime, I feel the need to put this out there for any and all stupid people in the world:

First of all, there are no circumstances in which an obscene phone call is funny. It is always a violation of the person you are calling. Imagine how you would feel if somebody made such a call to your mother or sister (I intentionally don't say girlfriend or wife here, because I can't imagine a woman self-loathing enough to date or marry someone with the emotional maturity of Bart Simpson). If you wouldn't find it funny or appropriate when done to someone you love, then it's not funny or appropriate when you do it to someone else.

Second, there are really no circumstances in which a crank call is funny. Only little boys find them hilarious. Little boys who have no empathic capacity for the person they are bothering at the other end of the line.

I myself have a job where, unless I am out of the state, I am essentially on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When I get a phone call in the middle of the night, it means someone is either already dead, actively dying, or in the midst of some other deeply serious crisis. That's the mentality I wake up with when the phone rings in the wee hours, and I know I have the span of three rings to pull myself together enough to deal with whatever kind of crisis is calling. Plenty of other people - like doctors, funeral directors, policemen, firemen, to name a few - also have "on-call" occupations, and would respond in a similar way. You don't just fall back asleep after being woken up like that, so it's extremely annoying to get a non-emergency call in the middle of the night. You are lucky my phone was off when you called, because if you had woken me up with this nonsense, on a Saturday night no less, you would have had hell to pay.

The sinner in me is hoping you get some karmic retribution - soon.

But the pastor in me recognizes that you clearly have some issues, and prays you find the help you need before you inflict yourself upon anybody else.