1st After the JB Nightmare Anniversary - Ahhhhhhhhh

We had a wonderful day.

On at least three wedding anniversaries, I suspect that JB called Hubbie right at supper time.

The first one I know for sure. 2003. We were in the car at 6:00 on the way to a restaurant. JB calls to ask Hubbie if we are going to be going to her house Thanksgiving. This was at least 15 years into our marriage. In my previous post, I noted that Thanksgiving is almost always at our house... started that way due to his work schedule.

He said that she didn't know it was our anniversary. Yea, right. I was sitting in the car right next to him when he answered. I did not hear our anniversary mentioned.

The following year, we stopped off to visit a friend on the way to dinner. Right at 6pm, his cell phone rang. He silenced it. I later looked at his call stack and the call had been deleted. I am 99% sure it was her. (2004)

2005, I don't know if she tried calling or not. I suspected a possible pre-emptive strike on hubbie's part -- that he may have noticed the pattern.

On our 20th anniversary, we went to Disney. We were looking at the Christmas lights at Disney Studios. At 5:45 PM, I noticed hubbie messing with his cell phone. I am 99% sure it was her calling. (2006) We were busy on vacation, he may have forgotten to make a pre-emptive strike. When we were deciding what to do for our 20th, my main wish: As far away from home as possible. Reason that I didn't tell him: to be away from JB's reach.

No known problems in 2007 and 2008. Possible pre-emptive strike of hubbie contacting her earlier in teh day.

2009 was a wonderful anniversary. No cell phone calls all day!

The ahhhhhhhh part of the day is that it was unplanned. I did not feel like I had to find something to ensure that our time was filled so that JB couldn't make up an emergency that was bigger than our anniversary or just a plain old excuse to bother us.

This was a nice day. The first day of the a great year! Last year wasn't so bad either! I didn't really even think of her until I got online to write this post!

More About Phone Calls

I now think that MIL was playing games with the phone up until she died. I posted about how she would hang up when I answered and later tell hubbie that I had pretended not to hear her. AFter that, I started specifically reported every hangup call I got to him. There was one that was pretty obviously her. After that, she only called him on the cell phone.


I still got the occasional hangup. I finally accepted that now these were the normal hangups of robocallers or rude people with the wrong number. A lot of them were late at night. But MIL has been dead for 4-1/2 months. IN THAT PERIOD OF TIME, I HAVE NOT HAD A SINGLE HANGUP CALL. So now, I again think that maybe those were her.


I really did not suspect her until after she died. There were several reasons I didn't think it was her before. First, it was only 3 or 4 calls a month -- nothing so excessive it could not have been wrong numbers. Second is that it was so much more like 15 year old behavior than 75 year old behavior -- even if the person had lots of other problems and faults. And third, she only called DH's cell when she wanted to talk to him since the incident of me yelling across the house.

But another reason TO suspect is that these calls is the timing. They happened around 4:30 pm or just before midnight. She was a night owl -- forwarding emails all night long.

I am pretty sure that she knew that hubbie got home around 5:30 and I got home around 4 and that DH goes to bed around 10 and I stay until after the weather on the 11:00 news, or sometimes later. These calls were before he got home and after he went to bed -- times that I would be the one to answer the phone.

It just occurred to me to day that she was checking to see if I was still in his life and hoping I wasn't since I cut her out of mine? The calls were at the times that I would normally be the one to answer and not him.

Original Phone Games

It seems that somehow I deleted the original phone game post, so I'll rewrite that story today.


One evening when hubbie and I were arguing over the evil JB and even more evil FIL (who he still does not realize were evil), he accused me of pretending that I didn't hear them when they call. I just accused him of lying. He said, you have answered the phone and said "hello" a few times then hung up. I've called them later the same evening and they would say "Oh, I you got your phone fixed.... we called earlier and your wife couldn't hear us."

Then I started thinking about it. Maybe it wasn't him lying, it was the ILs lying. Sometimes I would get dinner time phone calls where whoever was on the other end didn't say anything. I didn't think too much of it. It did not happen very often. Tape-delayed telemarketer, kid with wrong number? We didn't have caller id so I really didn't know. It was not often enough to get paranoid about it or connect it.

After that whenever the phone would ring and nobody would say anything, I'd treat it as if it was the ILs on the other end doing just that. If hubbie was around, I'd hand him the phone and say "whoever it is won't say anything." If he wasn't around, when he got home, I would say "call your parents." He'd say "why, did they call." I'd say "somebody called, but whoever it was didn't say anything." Funny thing is I think he did start believing me because he did not argue.

Finally a few months later, I got one of those phone calls about 5:30 pm. When hubbie got home, again I told him to call home, that whoever was there didn't say anything. About an hour later, the ILs call (again) to tell hubbie that niece had her baby. I knew that he was talking to them, so I was in the next room yelling at the top of my lunghs "mighty damn funny!!!" over an over again.

After that, he started exclusively communicating with them over the cell phone. The hangup calls at dinner time did slow down a whole lot (a whole lot being from 2 or 3 a month to 2 or 3 a year). There have been hangup calls at other times. I still got paranoid, but kept telling myself that I shouldn't.


The more recent ones were more like they were annoy me rather than tyring to get hold of him. They came at times that he was not going to be home.

But guess what, maybe I should have.
I have not had one hang-up call since before JB died!
And it's coming up on three months.
To quote myself all those years ago, "Mighty Damn Funny!"

Another Phone Game

I just posted about MIL and/or FIL hanging up on me when I answered the phone.

*NOTE: That post disappeared, but I reposted the story on March 30*

I remember one time about 20 years ago having a strange conversation with a secretary at Hubbie's office. This was before voice mail when the secretary answered the phone and gave you a message slip when you did not answer. Hubbie was not in his office very much. He did have a pager that you could call when he was not in his office due to the nature of his work.

I called hubbie's office one day and the secretary picked up. When she asked if she could take a message, I politely declined and said that I would page him. She answered "why didn't you just hang up on me like you usually do?" I don't remember how I responded, but I found it strange.

Now reflecting back on the ILs hanging up when they called the house and hubbie not answering, can we guess why the secretary was hung up on a lot?

Another thing that happened was when hubbie had the pager, he'd get a lot of calls on the pager that were invalid. I don't remember exactly, I believe that they had a bunch of jibberish instead of a valid phone number. Want to guess who made those calls?

No More Telephone Games

This story goes across many years.

Hubbie knows that I don't like the ILs. The thing of that is, he accused me of acting on it when I didn't. He was caught between believing me and believing them.

One of the things that happened was a "telephone game". I did not know this was happening for quite a while.

They always called at dinner time. When, I was closest to the phone so I answered. When he was closest to the phone he answered. As we know, this is a time for many phone calls

Sometimes I would answer the phone and get a hangup call. This only happened every week or two, so I thought very little about it. Just assumed it was a tape that had not yet kicked in or a youngster or other rude person who had the wrong number.

Then during a fight about the IL's, Hubbie accused me of pretending that I didn't hear anybody on the phone whenever they called. At this point I had not added things up yet, I just accused him of lying because I really thought he was making it up. He went on to say, "I have been right in the room with you when you said "hello, hello", acted like you didn't hear anybody. Then my parents would call later in the evening and say "Oh, I see you got your phone fixed." Again, I just accused him of lying.

A few minutes later it occurred to me that the hangup calls must have been them. They hung up when they heard my voice (actually, they stayed on the line -- I did not get dial tones) then they said that I had done that to them.

I knew that telling hubbie what I figured out would do not good, so new stragegy.

Everytime I got a hangup/nobody saying anything call:
if he was home, I'd hand him the phone and say "whoever it is won't say anytying to me."
if he was not home, as soon as he got home I'd say "Call your Mother." He'd ask if she called. I'd say "somebody called and did not say anything." In neither of these cases, did he argue with me. I think maybe he figured it out.

Whenever I did *69, I got a message that they could not trace the call. (They were long distance...)

The next pivitol incident in this chain was the day his niece had a baby -- their great-grandchild. I believe it was their fourth? But this niece was their favorite grandchild. One afternoon, the phone rang at a time that he might have been home but he was working late. I think it rang multiple times that afternoon, I would not testify to being sure to that either way. Anyway, one time or multiple times, the caller said anything, so I told Hubbie when he got home to call his parents. When he asked why, I said because the phone had been ringing with nobody there. A few minutes later the phone rang and he was closest so he answered. I could tell he was talking to his parents. So I started screaming at the top of my lungs "Mighty Damn Funny, Mighty Damn Funny", something he often would say about things that he accused me of doing in relation to them. When he got off the phone, he told me about the baby. He told me what time the baby was born, which was before the first phone call, and he also said that they had been at the hospital at some time and had just gotten home. The "time" he gave of course was before I was called.

But, I do believe that after that he believed me and not them, but he did not tell me that. That was the last time that they called the house to my knowledge. After that (except for one time that I'll blog about later), they only called his Cell.

I also quit getting dinner time hangup calls.

Coincidental?


I have been hung up on the phone since that happened, though. I still suspected that they may be behind it for some stupid immature reason or another. FIL died in 2003. MIL died 2 months ago.

Here is the strange thing. Not one hang-up call, even the less frequent ones I got after the niece giving birth since MIL died?

Coincidence?