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Scenario:

I am 8 years old, playing with some of my previous generation toys; mum is in the kitchen of the tiny two-room house we stayed in when I was young, and daddy on the chair reading the morning paper. Four feet away from dad, the ugly black telephone we used to own (now considered as antique) begins the ring the steady tring tring… Dad continues to pour into his paper while mum is oblivious to the fact that someone at the other end is desperately waiting to talk to one of us.

Then abruptly, as if dad all of a sudden came back to reality, asks mum to answer the phone and tell whoever that is on the other end that he isn’t available. Mum dutifully does what she has been told. Mum takes down a message, hangs up and returns to the kitchen as if everything was normal.

All this while, I stopped playing with my toys, raised my head up and with a tiny "O" in my mouth, watched the entire episode in awe!

Why I recall this incident now is because I found myself in my dad’s position last weekend. I was confronted with the same situation; I avoided answering the phone on Saturday afternoon (with my mobile phone conveniently switched off) and asked dad to answer it instead and asked him to tell whoever that was on the other end that I wasn’t available.

When you are 8, you yearn for someone to call YOU! And it is difficult for you to comprehend why your dad does not want to talk to someone who’s taking all the pains to call him.

Well, as they say, what goes around comes around. Oh, did I mention not to provide your residence numbers to credit card guys?