my weekend from h-e-double-hockey-sticks

please be fore-warned that the topics i am about to discuss are not for children or other sensitive readers.

that said, thursday morning, around four am, i received several text messages in quick succession. startled out of a doze (i had woken up at three, thank you insomnia), i grabbed my phone and was shocked to see messages asking if i was still looking for someone, describing what the texter was proposing to do, and explaining the attributes of the texters' male parts. some of the messages included pictures. these pictures were not of the texters' faces.

wide awake now, i got out of bed and turned on my computer. my first thought was to contact my cell phone service provider and see if i could block numbers.* i quickly realized, however, that i would need to know the numbers i wanted to block and these texts (and calls) were coming from multiple, unknown numbers. i turned my cell phone to 'silent' and tried to go back to sleep but i was too freaked out to relax. the messages and calls kept coming and although i did not open the messages, i could see how they began and when pictures were attached.

i deduced from the part of the messages i could see that an ad had been placed on craig's list, soliciting casual man-to-man sex. whoever posted the ad had lots of interested parties, but would never know since he had apparently posted my phone number. i also figured out that the ad must have been placed in southern california because most of the phone numbers had southern california area codes. it was friday evening before i found the ad, flagged it, and filed a harassment complaint with craig's list. three hours later, the ad was still up and i was still receiving messages. by then i had begun responding 'wrong number' to texts and my sister was answering my phone when it rang (most callers hung up when they heard a woman's voice. they weren't interested in women.).

around 11:30, i stopped receiving messages. i still turned my phone to 'silent' for the night, however. i was still freaked out over the whole thing. i felt so helpless. craig's list didn't respond, the ad poster didn't respond (i had emailed him), and my phone number is now public. if the messages had continued, i probably would have changed my number, which i still might do.

in addition to all of that, my sister and i had food poisoning (we think). i was very happy to see monday morning, knowing that the weekend was over.

*at&t will block numbers for you but they charge a monthly fee.