You will be happy to know that my long running streak of receiving accidental phone calls from the elderly is now at two. Last October, if you’ll recall, I received a wrong number voice mail from an old man named Ben who hails from Canada and is the most insanely polite person I’ve ever talked to. He was so over-the-top polite that after a while I started to suspect that maybe it was all a smokescreen and that he was overcompensating to hide some terrible secret. “All right, Ben,” I felt like yelling into the phone, “knock off the horseshit politeness act. We both know that you’ve got a basement cemetery full of hobos and drifters!” But knowing Ben, he’d deny it and then apologize for being so contrary. Continue reading