CHAPTER ONE – REAGAN
Viva La Peen
There was a cock on my phone screen.
No, not a picture of my brother, although that would have been the appropriate introduction for such a thing.
Not a rooster or cockerel or whatever those cock-a-doodle-doo bastards were called.
An actual cock.
A dick.
A peen.
A pork sword.
A semen lollipop.
A jizz teat.
A sperm worm.
A cum gun.
An honest-to-God fucking penis.
Attached to an honest-to-God man.
Who had the honest-to-God wrong motherfucking phone number.
This wasn’t how most Monday mornings started. I didn’t want to drink my coffee with a side of dick pic, thank you very much. I wanted it with a side of hot, buttered toast, or maybe a shot of something stronger if it was that kind of Monday.
It was not that kind of Monday.
Yet.
It was pretty damn close.
I blinked at my phone screen as I stirred my coffee. I’d never received one of these before. I counted myself lucky, given the… liberties… people took with the internet these days.
How did this happen?
Was this one of those situations where a wrong number had been given out at the bar? Or was it a genuine mistake?
I didn’t understand how people could make genuine mistakes with numbers.
Did nobody save to their contacts list anymore?
Let me tell you, if I was going to send a picture of my boobs to someone, I wouldn’t be typing their number in. I’d be performing an FBI-level check-up on a suspicious person.
I probably also wouldn’t be sending a photo of my boobs to anyone in the first place.
I digress.
What was the appropriate course of action here? I mean, it was seven in the morning and I had to drink my shower, take a coffee, and get to work in an hour.
Wait.
That was wrong.
Drink my coffee, take a shower, and get to work in an hour.
That’s better.
See? It was too early to be contemplating the correct response to a wrong-number dick pic.
Was there a correct response?
Was no response the right response?
This was the kind of adulting high school severely lacked in teaching you. Debating the existence of God has never once helped me pay my taxes, cut my grocery bill, or work out my budget.
Or, as it turns out, handle a dick pic.
Jesus Christ, I’d thought the words ‘dick pic’ far too many times this morning.
I was going to need therapy after this.
I locked my phone and put it screen-down on the table in front of me. I needed to shower instead of think about this for a moment.
I honestly believed that there wasn’t a problem that couldn’t be solved in a hot shower.
I finished my coffee and headed into the bathroom. After I turned on the shower, I brushed my teeth, and when the room was suitably filled with steam, I stripped off and climbed in.
The hot water beat down on me, slicking my long, purple hair to my neck and back as it soaked it through. I closed my eyes and ran my fingers through my hair, and then reached for the shampoo.
As I massaged it in, my mind wandered back to the situation at hand. The easiest thing to do would be to wrinkle my nose up and delete it, then move on with my life. Maybe block the number.
Did the sender know they’d sent it to the wrong person? I know you can’t exactly take back a text message, but I’d like to think that most people would apologize when they realized they’d sent such a personal picture to the wrong person.
So… Chances were, he had no idea he’d gotten the wrong number.
I rinsed the shampoo from my hair.
So, I had two options, didn’t I? Delete it, act like it never happened, and hope that he never texted me again. Or I could send him a quick message that said sorry, wrong number, have a nice day!
And move on.
I finished in the shower after conditioning my hair and soaping my body and got out. Condensation had my mirror all foggy with droplets running down it, so I wrapped myself in towels and left, making sure to crack open the window so it could dry out.
I dried off and got dressed in leggings and a loose, button-down shirt, then pulled my wet hair up into a twisted bun on top of my head.
I’d made my decision about what to do with this text message somewhere between my underwear getting stuck on my wet shins and almost hitting my elbow on my dresser.
I was going to send him a nice text telling him about his mistake.
I’d want to know.
I snatched my phone up from the table and unlocked it. The message flashed up instantly, and I hit the reply box.
ME: Hey, sorry, but you’ve got the wrong number.
Then, with my conscience cleared and the knowledge that I’d performed my good deed for the day, I left my apartment headed for the florist store where I’d worked for the last ten years.