Dreams That Go "Ring" In the Night

Though I haven't asked everyone in the world as yet, no one in my small circle of friends or within my extended family has ever received an obscene phone call while laying in a hospital bed. I have, and this is precisely the type of thing that makes blogging worthwhile. No one else in the house is awake yet, so there's nobody to turn to and say "I just remembered something odd, listen to this..."

Back in the early 80s I was in the hospital for a series of tests. Since my last post was fifty three inches long, I'll bypass details here and get to the guts of the topic.
It was very late at night and a very tired me was laying there scheming ways to get my hands around the throat of the person who invented the catheter.
Suddenly my bedside phone rang. As this was completely out of the norm and totally shattered the dead calm around me, I jumped near out of my skin as I snatched the receiver.

"Hello?" I said in a very curious tone.
A deep "guy voice" at the other end said as clear as day, "I want to do you," then the phone clicked over to an in-house dial tone.

Still holding the phone, I looked around me thinking "what the hell?" After untangling my puppet-like wires and tubes and returning the receiver to its cradle, I pushed the "help" button that apparently lets nurses know it's time for their coffee break.

Laying there for the next fifteen minutes or so, I replayed the phone call in my head several times and decided it wasn't a friendly prank thing. Firstly, very few people in my outside world even knew I was in the hospital, and secondly, calls couldn't come in to the hospital at such a late hour. It wasn't permitted.

Now quite wide awake and slightly shaken, I maneuvered my bed to a sitting position. A nurse walked in and asked what I needed, to which I replied in excited tones "Somebody wants to do me!" She picked up my chart and tried to determine if I had been on any hallucinogens and upon realizing that I was not, she simply said, " 'DO' you?"

We kicked around a seemingly insane question/answer session for the next few minutes.
Nurse: "Why would someone want to do you?"
Carol: "I don't know... but I don't want to be 'done' "
N: "But calls cannot come in to the rooms at this hour"
C: "But this one did ~ it had to be made from inside"
N: "But why would anyone inside the hospital call to say such a thing?"
C: "Look, I don't even know why anyone on EITHER side would say such a thing!"
N: "Well do you want a sleeping pill?"
C: "No, I would like to be coherent if someone is going to come in here and 'do' anything to me!"
N: "Well we would never let that happen."
C: "Well you've clearly let the phone call happen!"
N: "You were dreaming."
C: "Bite me."

After this very helpful nurse left my room, I gathered all my thoughts and decided she must be right. No one inside a hospital was going to make an obscene phone call in the middle of the night. It was surely a dream. I eventually felt at ease with this and dozed off to sleep.

The following day was to be my last before heading home. I underwent the usual sadistic tests and left varied specimens throughout the day in the name of medical science. (Someday I'd like to meet just ONE person who actually holds the prestigious position of examining excrement. There's a job to aspire to.)

At the end of the day while I was packing up my toothbrush, toiletries and the obligatory stolen hospital towel, a nurse walked in and said "Well I have to tell you, you're the only patient I've even known to have their phone ring in the night like that ... do you have a friend on staff here?" I looked up and explained with a smile that it had all been a silly dream. She corrected me, however, saying that unless dreams are now audible, she clearly heard my phone ring the night before.

At least I knew I hadn't been dreaming and that someone really did have too much time on their hands at the hospital that night.