who is this?

I hate to turn this into the recurring theme of this blog, but I seem to attract people who aren't really looking for me at all. First there was the guy who was looking for the other Ryan Lash (so much for making this an anonymous blog...) and now this little story:
(this is for Shingo who, while it was happening, said to no one in particular "I'm sure we'll be reading this on his blog tomorrow.")
We had all gone to beach for the next-to-last-day-of-fasting (Baha'is fast every year from March 2nd to 20th. During the fast we don't eat or drink from sunrise to sunset, so the beach was a good place to be as we could watch the sun drop into the mediterranean and then enjoy a nice plate of kebab. Of course, the whole enjoying-a-plate-of-kebab thing didn't actually happen, but it was a nice idea. anyway, I digress).
So there we were at the beach and the sun had just plunged itself into the ocean and the air was crisp and the friends were happy (and hungry) and this whole idyllic scene was jarred by the ringing of my phone. (what follows is a brief rundown as my famished mind recalls it):

me: -hello?

her: -hey ryan! Is this Ryan?

-ummmm...yeah.

- hey, do you know who this is?

- ummmmm... no.

- what are you doing right now?

- we're looking for a place to eat dinner. (I'm quite the stunning conversationalist aren't I?)

- really? where? Are you coming by [name of a cafe]?

- ummmm... no. We're at the beach.

- really? who are you there with?

- [ this is where I tell her who I'm there with. Obviously shingo was there, as was Mrs. Ishikawa and the unborn Ishikawa (as they are hard to seperate. They're pretty much a package these days).]

- oh, ok. So do you know who this is yet?

- ummm.... no. [now, hidden behind all of this ummmmm'ing I'm frantically trying to figure out who this is. Here in Haifa, all the Baha'is have these work phones and they're all on an internal network. So if a 4 digit number shows up on the display, you know it's a call from another Baha'i, or at least someone using a Baha'is phone. So I'm trying recall who may have been coming to Haifa for a visit as Haifa is a freakishly transiant place and people are always coming and going and besides, I couldn't think of anyone who lived here who would call me up and ask me if I recognized their voice...so it must be someone from out of town borrowing a cell phone. eventually I just took a stab]

me: ... [someone]! Is this [someone]?

her (sounding a little angry): - [someone]? who's [someone]?

- ummm.... ok, well you're going to have to give me a hint or something, cause I really have no idea.

- what? you don't know who this is? Aren't you going ot meet up with us later?

- Well, if I knew who this was, I probably would...

[so we chat on for a while, me trying to get any kind of information out of her, her really doing her best not to talk at all. After a few more attempts to get me to try to guess who she is, she says to me:]

- I'll give you five seconds to guess who I am. 5... 4... 3...

- You're giving me a countdown?! What kind of phone call is this?

- 2... 1... so do you know who this is?

- no! I have no idea! How am I supposed to figure out who you are if I'm doing all the talking?

[then she talks a bit and asks me a few more questions. after another 5 minutes she starts with the countdown again.]

me: - you know, these countdowns would be a lot more intimidating if something actually happened at the end. Like you could hang up on me or something.

- 2... 1... so do you know who this is yet?

- umm.... no.

[she still didn't hang up on me though. after another minute or so she said she'd call me back and give me another chance. so I hung up and stood on the sidewalk trying to figure out what had just happened. I enlisted the help of my friends and we came up with some very detective-y schemes to identify the mystery girl. (just a word of advice: don't mess with my friends. cause they'll track you down in no time.)
So I called her back. my first guess was wrong. so I hung up on her (I know, I'm cold. no countdown or anything.)
My friends and I schemed a bit more and I was able to find out whose cell phone she was using. So I called the number and asked to speak to the owner of the phone. I figured they'd be on my side. I should point out that I didn't actually know the owner of the phone. We had never met. But I knew it was a woman. When I called the number there was a guy's voice on the other end.]

me: - hi, can I speak to [the owner of the phone]?

[first he tried to tell me that HE was the owner of the phone, but he really wasn't too convincing and I didn't even have to resort to the intimidating countdown before he passed me over to the actual owner. funny thing though, her voice sounded strangely familiar. And I don't mean "familiar" like I'd met her before, I mean "familiar" like the voice of a person who had just given me 2 seemingly-threatening-yet-ultimately-pretty-lame-cellphone-countdowns.]

me: um, is this [the owner of the cellphone]?

[she didn't answer but passed me back to the guy]

him: - yeah?

me: - was that [the owner of the cellphone]?

- yeah, don't you even know who you were talking to?

- well, now I do. but do you know who you're talking to?

- ummm...yeah, this is Ryan isn't it?

- yeah, but which Ryan?

- Ryan [not my last name]?

- oh, because this is Ryan Lash.

- oh.

[we both started laughing and he passed me back to her she apologized profusely and that was just about the end of it. One of my friends pointed out that after all that giving-me-a-hard-time-because-I-couldn't-recognize-her-voice thing, she really wasn't very good at recognizing the voice of the guy she thought she was talking to.

As a footnote to the whole thing, today I had dinner with both her and the guy who she was trying to get ahold of. He and I had a good laugh about it. She didn't think it was quite as funny. Especially when I was recounting the dreaded cellphone-countdown. I mean really. Who does that? And if you're going to actually go through with the countdown, you should at least be serious enough to follow through on the hangup.... really now.