Gina's RantSpot

happy New Year! I had quite the mellow, yet fun, New Year's celebration.

There was a bit too much cake involved, but that's what the gym is for, right? (I will be attending a lot of Courtney's classes at the Union Station multiplex in the near future!)

Okay, so here's an interesting one for you guys . . . About 3.5 years ago (or more), I installed a business line that's used for clients or anything not personal (duh!). Unbeknownst to me, it was previously the number of a Chinese market of some sort. I quickly learned this as I got more and more calls from would-be patrons who were either began speaking Chinese immediately, or those who spoke English that wanted to place orders.

At first it was humorous, and when I was bored, I contemplated taking food orders. Then I started noticing patterns in the calls. For instance, it happened routinely that a woman would call. I'd give her the wrong number message. She'd call again, and then, from the same number, a man would call. I'd give him the identical wrong number message, with a bit more vocal venom, and then the calls would stop. I could just envision the wife telling the husband it was the wrong number, him not trusting her to have dialed the right number, and then calling the number himself (as though men are more adept at dialing numbers), only to have to admit that she was right.

After years of dealing with this, I'm now at the point where I see no humor in these calls. None whatsoever. They are not even worth establishing a pattern, they're just plain annoying. I've called Yellow Pages and White Pages, just to make sure that my number isn't cross listed somewhere. I've grown hostile, to the point where I look at caller ID, know it's not really for me, pick up the phone, tell them they have the wrong number and hang up before they can say "2 orders of Egg Foo Young and an eggroll." Some of them, the really confused ones, call back and hang up when they hear my voice . . . as though their number isn't prominently displayed on Caller ID. I hate being hung up on, so on a few occasions I've angrily called back only to tell them never to call me again. It feels good at the time.

Is everyone getting ready for New Year's Eve?

Unless I have a date, I'm usually not really one who gets hyped over New Years Eve. I used to love party-hopping on New Years until I took a count of all of the times I was in the car for the midnight celebration. Far too many.

And then, when I think of making grandiose plans, I consider all of the formal parties for which I shopped for expensive dresses and uncomfortable shoes, only to sip a glass of painfully cheap champagne at midnight.

After seeing everyone at these parties -- mostly people who don't go out any other time of the year -- people who have the alcohol tolerance of a newborn, drink WAY too much, and insist on driving home -- I made the decision that New Year's Eve is amateur night. It's the one night of the year that clubs can cash in on people who never socialize any other time. They can charge $75 to enter a room that I was in the night before for a maximum of $10.

Although sometimes it's fun to have a good party to go to, and a reason to dress up. In absence of those possibilities, I think I'm just going to mellow out this year with a few friends.

Whatever you decide to do . . . make it a safe one! I'll see you next year!

Just so that everyone knows . . . the columns are posted on Wednesdays instead of Mondays from now on. I still haven't decided whether or not I'm going to retire on my anniversary.