A Call From Anonymous

I picked up the phone, even though caller id said Anonymous was on the other end.

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When the phone rang, I checked the Caller ID. Anonymous, it said. I didn't know anyone by that name. The phone rang again. Anonymous was calling a second time. I picked up the phone. Maybe it was a person who knew our code: if we don't answer, dial again right away. A young man was on the other end.

"Hi, Grandma."

"Oh, hi. How's everything?

"Listen, there's something important I have to tell you. Don't tell anyone. Well, you can tell Grandpa. But it has to be a secret between the three of us."

"Your name came up as Anonymous on the home phone. If you'd called my cell phone, I would have known it was you."

"Well, yes, but I'm calling from an unusual location."

The young man sounded like my grandson, but then in a way he didn't. I knew that my grandson was supposed to be in Maryland for his other grandmother's funeral.

"Are you in Maryland?"

"Yes. But I have this problem."

"What is it?

"I'm staying with my friend Chris. Well, we're actually staying in a condo owned by his uncle. We were taking one of those private taxis and the driver was speeding. The police stopped us. They searched the car, and they found a whole pile of drugs. The police arrested all three of us."

"Where exactly are you?"

"I'm in jail. I need your help."

I started to have vague memories of scams I'd heard of, phone calls where unsuspecting grandparents are asked to send money to grandchildren in trouble, but it's all fake. The next request would be for money, I was sure of that. And I thought of the caller's greeting, "Hi, Grandma." But my grandson has never called me Grandma. I'm his Swedish-American grandmother. My name is Mormor, his mother's mother.

I decided to confront the caller as he babbled on about his predicament. "What is the name you usually call me?" I asked.

And then he launched into a tirade, telling me I didn't care about him, cursing at me for being unfeeling. It was not the usual response to a simple question: "What is the name you usually call me?"

I interrupted him. "I'll call you back," I said, hanging up the home phone and then reaching for my cell phone. I called my grandson.

"Hi, Mormor," he said.

"Did you just call me on the landline?"

"No."

"I didn't think so, but I wasn't totally sure. I just had a strange phone call from a guy who said he was my grandson. He said he had a secret to tell me, that he was in a taxi, the driver was speeding, the police found drugs in the car, and now he was in jail, along with his friend and the taxi driver. Guess his next request was going to be for bail money. What gave the guy away was that he called me 'Grandma.'"

"I've never called you that. That's my other grandmother. And she just died. It would be weird for me to call you by her name. Her funeral's tomorrow."

"Yes, and I'm sorry about that. It would definitely be odd for you to call me by her name. That phone call was so strange and unsettling. I'm grateful that your mother instructed you to refer to me as Mormor. It was brilliant of her to do that."

"So that twenty-seven years later you could stop a scam before it got very far?"

"Absolutely. And I hope the next person that young man calls also goes by a name other than Grandma. Perhaps Mormor. Or if not that, maybe Oma, Bubbe, Yai-Yai or Nona."

By Anita G. Gorman

From: United States

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