It's just a solicitation for donations. But to Mike, or Bob, or Rob, or John, or whoever he was, I was "THAT WOMAN WHO HUNG UP ON HIM."

I've been in a sour, tired, blah mood all day. I do not want to fold laundry. I do not want to wake up. I do not want to clean the bathroom. I do not want to take out trash. I will do it tomorrow. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

So when I finally get home tonight, knowing dang well that I have to pack, and that the clothes I want to pack have been sitting in the washing machine all day, I sigh a bit more.

I walk in the door, sighing, and the phone, it's ringing, and I'm so annoyed by this ringing phone that I almost don't answer it. I am angry at my phone, thinking "WHY ARE YOU RINGING? CAN'T YOU SEE I'M SIGHING?"

Not answering it is worse, though, because then if it's someone you know, you inevitably have to call them back, and I'll undoubtedly forget, and then we'll have to have this discussion about why I never call them back ...

So I just answered the stupid thing.

"Hello, this is (I don't remember, Mike or John or Rob or some other one-syllable name). I'm calling on behalf of the Wisconsin firemen .... Is Erin Nice there?"

NICE. NICE. No. I laughed about this on the inside, trust me, when from the corner of my eye, I swore I saw something on the carpet, and I swore it just moved. Toward me. And it is black and round, and I'll be danged if it's not a bug.

"Yes, but this isn't a good time ..." My heart raced.

"It's OK, I'll only take a minute," he said.

"But I have to go," I said, and hung up. I HUNG UP ON A FIREMAN. But in my "I have to go," I'm sure he also heard "But I fully support you and your group and the fighting of fire and the saving of kittens and the rescuing of people. I do. But there is this THING on my floor. Unless you'd like to come over and investigate it, I must hang up now and scream like a child."

I stared at the THING on the carpet, threw my shoe at it, and it didn't move.

OK, so it wasn't alive.

So now I've just hung up on a man who thinks he knows my name, and who surely knows where I live, and who possesses the ability to let my cat hang out in a tree, if I ever get a cat, and that cat ever climbs a tree.

AND NOW I HAVE ALL THIS GUILT. GREAT.