Beth

Last week I received a number of dirty texts on my iPhone from an Austin area code. Either some (I’m sure well-meaning) girl got the wrong number, or there’s a rumor out there that I have a huge penis and she wanted in on the action. Or it was spam. That’s what I assumed, so I didn’t respond and deleted each of the messages as they came in.

But then a few days passed and I got this text:

Oct 7, 2011 12:29 PM
I GUESS U DONT WANT TO SEE ME ANYMORE BETH

Goddamn spam! I thought. Hours passed, then:

Oct 7, 2011 7:10 PM
NO TEXT NO CALL I GET THE HINT

I started to imagine this Beth, and how maybe she was starting to resign herself to the fact that she’d slept with yet another guy who seemed to be really into her, then never returned her calls. I imagined how embarrassed I’d be if I’d sent a number of explicit texts to someone, only to wait several days for a response that was never coming. I imagined that from 12:30 to 7:10 that day, Beth was alone in her apartment, willing the phone to ring, hoping for just some reassurance that she wasn’t going to die a lonely skank. So…I engaged.

Oct 7, 2011 8:49 PM
I think you have the wrong number…you’re writing to a married mother of a 4 month old baby…

Oct 7, 2011 8:51 PM
SORRY

I was so relieved. Beth was a real person, and I had just given her a little ray of hope that this guy actually didn’t fuck-and-run. Maybe he’d been waiting for her text, and when they finally managed to reach each other, they’d laugh about how Beth harassed some strange married mom when they first met.

I should have left it at that. It was a perfect little ending.

But I got high on my own power in solving this mess, and added:

Oct 7, 2011 8:53 PM
No problem. If that was you earlier this week I didn’t respond because I thought it was spam.

Okay, whatever. I regretted sending the message, because I thought it might embarrass Beth further. Maybe she didn’t need confirmation that she texted filthy messages to a (female) stranger. But I didn’t hear back, so I figured all was well in Beth’s world.

The next day, though…

Oct 8, 2011 12:04 PM
DO U HAVE TWO KIDS BETH

ARE U MARRIED

I don’t get it… I thought. She knows I’m married. And she knows it’s a wrong number! Is she really this dumb? I ignored it. An hour passed.

Oct 8, 2011 1:18 PM
PLEASE CALL ME

Obviously that wasn’t going to happen. Three days went by.

Oct 11, 2011 9:29 AM
IF U  R  MARRID      I THING ME AND HUSBAND BEEN TOGETHER

Enough was enough.

Oct 11, 2011 9:45 AM
You need to stop texting me.

Immediate response:
OK HES BEEN FUCKING ME FOR OVER TWO YEARS SORRY SW3TIE BYE

Did I suspect, just for a moment, that maybe Beth is  a real person and actually has been fucking Joel for over two years? Of course. But I also know that Joel would never have sex with someone who writes in all-caps and can’t spell. My husband has standards. Maybe I should tell her that.