The IRS has called me three times in the past month.
The good news is they aren’t looking for me. Every time, they inform me that they are trying to find a man named “Charles Commander.” During this morning’s third call, after once again assuring the IRS that I don’t know a Charles Commander and they have in fact once again reached my personal cell phone, I decided it was my turn to ask some questions. I softened up the IRS lady with some of my trademark nonsense gushing: “Charles Commander is SUCH a cool name!” then asked how he came to be linked to my number.
“It’s just listed as one of his phone numbers,” IRS lady told me.
“Well, I’m a little surprised. I’ve had this phone number for a long time.”
It true. In the year 2000, I moved from Ohio to the Florida Keys, where I crossed two bridges on my way to work every morning, fell in love with the sweet smell of frangipani tree blossoms outside of my bedroom window, and promptly threw away my watch. I planned to stay there for two or three years but ended up staying five, so you can tell I liked it there just a tiny little bit. Naturally, an important step in the process of melting into my fully relaxed Keys lifestyle was to get a Keys boyfriend, so I started dating a commercial fisherman. He is, incidentally, the only significant other of my entire life with whom I have managed to remain friends after the break-up.
The Fisherman was a character. A barefoot, beachcoming, metal-detecting, crab-trapping character. We lived on different planets but managed to have a really, really fun few years together – just don’t ask me what we talked about. It helped, I’m sure, that he is wickedly hot. Oh, that different planets thing I said? The Fisherman has never emailed. He’s in his mid-30s now, and it’s true – in his entire life, he has neither sent nor received a single email. That’s a fun thing to announce at parties. People freak out.
It’s strange, then, that he was the one who bought me my first cell phone.
The trend was really taking off just as I was getting settled in my island lifestyle, so despite my title of “Radio News Director,” I resisted for a long, long time. Given his other technical shortcomings, the Fisherman jumped on the cell phone train pretty quickly, and it makes sense. When your job is flinging around sharp objects and operating powerful machinery on a a commercial boat in rough seas, you’re very open to devices that enhance your ability to call for help should something go wrong.
So one day I came home, he said, “I went to the cell phone office today to pay my bill and they were having a two-for-one special and enough is enough,” and he tossed a tiny silver phone onto the couch beside me.
Oh, the Fisherman is also the luckiest person I have ever known. If he ever makes it as far west as Vegas, he will probably clean that town out, and I guess a little of his luck rubbed off onto me that day because I got a really great phone number, and I’ve kept it ever since. Yep, I still have a Keys number, even as an Orlando resident. And maybe it’s a little more than the number. Maybe having it makes me feel like a little part of my life in the Keys travels around with me, wherever I go.
So the IRS better BACK OFF, because the number is mine and I’m not giving it up, no way.
And Charles Commander? If you are reading this?
They’re coming for you.
