Telephone Call

Last week I was browsing over my book shelf and I spotted a well worn, well loved book that I've not looked at in a while.

The Collected Dorothy Parker - , Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967) who once called herself a little Jewish girl trying to be cute, is perhaps best remembered for remarking that men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses,

Then too, Parker's most famous poem, Résumé, is often quoted to attest to her matter-of-fact view of life and death:

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

I particularly like the short story 'Telephone Call'

'Telephone Call'

PLEASE, God, let him telephone me now. Dear God, let him call me now. I won't ask anything else of You, truly I won't. It isn't very much to ask. It would be so little to You, God, such a little, little thing. Only let him telephone now. Please, God. Please, please, please.


If I didn't think about it, maybe the telephone might ring. Sometimes it does that. If I could think of something else. If I could think of something else. Knobby if I counted five hundred by fives, it might ring by that time. I'll count slowly. I won't cheat. And if it rings when I get to three hundred, I won't stop; I won't answer it until I get to five hundred. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, forty, forty-five, fifty.... Oh, please ring. Please.