You've Reached Darren, Please Leave a Message

Hey! Hi. It’s me. Obviously, you know it’s me, your phone does that whole thing where it shows the name, unless you deleted my contact, which… whatever, that’s fine, that’s a completely normal thing to do, I’m not going to make that into a thing. I’m calling about Bear. So, his vet appointment is on Thursday. It’s at four o’clock. I know you have that meeting on Thursdays but I checked and it ends at three-thirty, so you’d have time, but if you can’t do it I can do it, I’m just saying it’s your turn because I took him last time and Dr. Espinosa asked about you, by the way, and I said you were good and she said “oh, good!” and then neither of us said anything for like four seconds, which is a long time to be standing in silence in a veterinary office while your dog is getting his anal glands expressed. So, um, anyway. She needs to do the heartworm blood draw this time and I don’t want to be the one holding him when they do that because he does this thing where he looks at you like you personally betrayed him and I just—I just can’t be the one he looks at like that right now.

Yup, anyway, um, Thursday. Four o’clock. Riverside Animal Clinic, not the one on Broad Street, the good one, the one we… the one I go to. Let me know. Okay that’s… that’s all I need to say so, I’m going to—actually, wait. While I have you, can you also check if you have his blue leash? Not the retractable one, the normal one, the nice one your mom got him for his birthday. Which, I know dogs don’t technically have birthdays, well like they have birthdays but not like, you know, birthdays!, but your mom was very insistent about it and I honestly think about that like, a lot. Not in a weird way, just in a “your mom bought a leash and wrapped it in tissue paper and wrote ‘Happy Birthday Bear!!!’ with three exclamation points” way and that’s—that’s just a fact about the world that I carry around with me now, that’s fine. So, anyway, if you have the leash, just bring it Thursday, or you can drop it off. Or don’t. I have the red one, so it’s fine, I just think he likes the blue one better because he gets excited when he sees it, or maybe he’s colorblind, I actually don’t know if dogs are fully colorblind or just partially? I feel like someone told me they can see blue, which would mean he can tell the difference and he does prefer it, but honestly, who knows, and anyway, not the point.

The point is Thursday. I’m going to hang up now.

Oh, but also, I’m doing really well, um, by the way. I know you didn’t ask but just in case you were, um, wondering, or in case your mom asks, because she texted me last week—which, I don’t know if you knew that, and I’m not trying to start anything, she just send me a picture of a dog that looked like Bear at a farmer’s market and was like “omg look, Bear’s twin!” with a smiley face, and I said “omg haha! So cute!” and that was the whole interaction, it wasn’t some like, secret back-channel thing. Your mom just likes me, that’s not really my fault, I’m not going to be rude to your mom just because we broke up… I have manners after all, Darren. So yeah, anyway, I’m good!

I’ve been going to the gym, which I know is the most cliché post-breakup thing a person can say, but I’m not going because of the breakup, I’m going because my back hurts from the mattress. Which is, it’s a new mattress, I got a new mattress, because you took yours, which was the complete right call of course because it was yours, I’m not being weird about the mattress. I’m just saying the new one is too firm and my back hurts so I go to the gym to help my back. That’s a completely linear, non-emotional chain of events. I bought a mattress, and the mattress is bad, so I go to the gym. There’s no symbolism here. Also your shampoo is still in the shower. You know, the um, the fancy one, the one that smells like eucalyptus or tea tree or whatever you said it was… you explained the “scent profile” to me once and I made fun of you for it but it does smell good, but I haven’t thrown it out because it’s still half full and I’m not wasteful. That’s an environmental choice, I’m not like, smelling your shampoo, Darren. I mean I smell it in the sense that it’s in the shower and I have a nose, but I’m not like, I’m not like picking it up and… okay, it doesn’t matter. It’s just there, a lot of things are just there.

Where was I? Oh right, Bear. So Bear has been acting kind of anxious. Not like anxious anxious, just like, he does this thing now where he sits by the door around six o’clock and just… stares at it? He didn’t used to do that. Or maybe he did and I just didn’t notice because there used to be more, um, happening at six o’clock and now it’s just me and him and I notice everything he does because he’s the only other breathing thing in the apartment. That kinda came out sadder than I meant it to. He’s fine! He’s thriving, promise. He just learned a new trick, actually… well, not a trick, he just started bringing me a shoe every morning, just one shoe, always the left one, and I don’t really know what that means but I’m choosing to see it as a gift and not a cry for help. His cry for help, I mean. Not mine. I don’t have a cry for help. I have a gym membership and a firm mattress and a dog who brings me shoes and a vet appointment that I need you to confirm, which is the only reason I am calling. I should hang up, I’m going to hang up.

One more thing though, I walked past your apartment the other day. Not ON PURPOSE. I was going to that Thai place, you know, the one on… okay, yes, it’s on your street, but it’s a really good Thai place, Darren, I’m not going to like, abandon an entire restaurant because you live near it, that’s like an insane thing to ask of a person and you didn’t even ask it, I’m just preemptively defending myself, which is both fine and normal. And I didn’t look up at your window. Well, I mean, I did glance, because you know, you glance at buildings, that’s what people do when they walk down a street, they look at the buildings, it’s architecture, not a felony. Your light was on though, by the way, at like eleven-thirty. Which is pretty late for you! You’re usually asleep by like ten because you have that whole nighttime routine with the magnesium and the book and the—well, I don’t really know why I know your light was on at eleven-thirty. I was just walking back from the Thai place, it’s a long walk. I was looking at buildings, many buildings, yours was actually one of several.

And I thought, for like a half a second—not even a full second, like a quarter of a second, maybe even less, just barely a thought, more like a reflex actually—I thought about texting you! Not anything big, just like, “omg you’re up late!” or something casual, something a friend would say, a buddy ol’ pal, because we said we were gonna be friends, remember? You said that, you said “I still want you in my life” which is a thing you said to me with your mouth and then you didn’t call for three weeks, so, I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do with that, like, as a concept. I didn’t text you, obviously, I went home and gave Bear a dental chew. I watched two episodes of that show you said was pretentious, by the way, you were right, but I’m watching it anyway because I’d already started it when we were together and I don’t like leaving things unfinished. That’s not a metaphor either, by the way.

God, okay, I really need to wrap this up because I think voicemails have a time limit and I think I’ve been talking for a genuinely concerning amount of time, this is probably the longest voicemail in the whole history of voicemails. They should study me. Put me in a museum! “Woman Calls About Dog’s Vet Appointment, Somehow Talks for Nine Minutes.” I’d go see that exhibit, honestly. Oh, and also, I still buy that peanut butter. The chunky kind, the kind in the green jar that you liked. Bear likes it too, so it’s a household staple at this point, it has nothing to do with you. I just, I had the smooth kind once it just felt wrong in my mouth and that’s not a metaphor either, it’s a textural preference. I am a person who prefers chunky peanut butter, and that predates you. You don’t get to have chunky peanut butter, Darren. Some things are just mine. Although now I can’t remember if I liked chunky peanut butter before we dated or if you like, converted me to it. Which, don’t read into that, forget I even said that… can you delete parts of a voicemail? You can’t, right? I think it, I think it just goes…? God, that’s sort of the whole problem, isn’t it.

Okay I’m going to hang up now, for real this time. Here’s a comprehensive summary of everything I called to say: Thursday. Four o’clock. The good vet. Heartworm blood draw. Bring the blue leash if you have it please. That’s it, and I’m doing really well. And Bear is doing really well. And, the apartment is great, it’s so quiet and great, I can hear myself think, which everyone says like that’s a good thing but honestly Darren some of the things I think at six o’clock when the dog is staring at the door and the apartment is just so quiet I can hear the fridge humming, some of those thoughts are just, you know, they’re um… do you remember that night we brought Bear home for the first time and he wouldn’t sleep in his crate so we just both laid on the kitchen floor with him until he…

Never mind, that’s not why I called, I called about the vet. I think what I’m trying to say is— *DIAL TONE*

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