In the English language, technically, “I’ll call you” literally means “one day in the near future, I will pick up my phone and I will dial your telephone number and you will pick up on the other line and we will talk.” I. Will. Call. You. But, in the modern dating world, “I’ll call you” kind of seems to mean, well, nothing. Has this phrase become the modern equivalent of “um”; is it just a filler? As examples, I have two new Boystories for you …

Boy #1. I’m on my way to work and I pass an absolutely gorgeous man on the street. He smiles. I smile back. I keep walking. Something propels me to turn around to check if he’s looking at me. He is. He jogs back towards me to say hello. Actually, wait … Before I continue with the story, I’d just like to say that this isn’t the first time that I met a boy on the street. Remember Tony, the Italian boy from Brooklyn who loves his momma? I should have learned my lesson. But, apparently I didn’t, so whatever, okay, now I’ll carry on … So, the boy jogs up to me, right? Yada yada yada he gives me his telephone number. He’s tall. He’s cute. I eventually call him. When he picks up the phone, he asks me to hold on for a minute. I do. I hear a bunch of rumbling and then I notice smooth background music. He returns to the phone and his voice is a little deeper than it was before. He says that he would like to cook me dinner for our first date. I tell him, “I have to go now, but I’ll call you later.” Of course, I don’t. And, I won’t.

Boy #2. I know Boy #2 through a friend-of-a-friend-kind-of-situation. He asks me for my telephone number at the top of the year, but then he doesn’t call me for three weeks. When he does call, we agree to go on a date. I have an absolutely wonderful time; the best date in New York yet. When it is over, he leans in to kiss me. He tells me that he thinks that we have a lot in common and he really enjoyed our date. He sounds sincere. He says that he’ll call me the next day so that we can talk again before I leave for my business trip. He doesn’t. I just returned back to New York the other day and he still hasn’t called. And, honestly, I don’t know if he will.

So, what exactly does “I’ll Call You” Mean?

I’m Home.

After much turbulence, my plane lands at New York’s LaGuardia Airport 52 minutes behind schedule. I leave the airport, get into the cab and tell the cabbie my address.

When I arrive at home, I slip the key into the keyhole and give it a turn. I open the door and I drag my luggage inside.

It’s good to be home.

Time to get comfortable. I remove my sweater from my body and kick my socks and shoes off. Now, I’m walking around barefoot in a t-shirt and jeans. That’s when I hear it. There is a noise in my bathroom.

“What the f*ck was that?” I wonder as I stand very still. Maybe I’ll hear it again.

rattle. rattle. rattle.

Yep. I hear it again. “Maybe that sound is actually in the apartment next door and it just sounds like it’s in my apartment,” I reason. I call Bro. I’m on the phone with her for about 15 minutes when it happens. Right before my very eyes, the largest f*cking mouse that every walked on the planet appears out of nowhere and charges toward me.

I scream at the top my my lungs and into the phone. “OMG, I just saw a mouse!!! I’m coming over.” While still on the phone with Bro (moral support), I grab my purse, my keys, my shoes. And, I run out of my apartment.

“You need a boyfriend,” Bro sighs.

For the next 24 hours I will be a refugee in the home of my absolutely lovely friend Bro until I figure out if I am going to either: (a) buy glue traps, steel wool and poison or (b) a cat.

PLEASE HELP!!! Does anyone have any advice or suggestions for getting rid of a mouse or, God help me, “mice” if there is more than one? I haven’t been home in over a week and I know that they are gutting the apartment downstairs. Years of living in Chicago taught me that renovations = mice. What can I do????