Phone Eater

Leah sinks her teeth into a nice ripe — probably organic — red apple taking a big crunchy bite. And a few hundred miles away, I’m yanking the phone from my ear to escape the extremely loud chomping sound.

The day after that it is chocolate covered pretzels, probably dark chocolate.

The day after that it’s Brazil nuts.

Leah is a phone eater. To be 100 percent clear, that means she eats while on the phone. She doesn’t eat the phone itself. While that might be equally annoying it would obviously be much more costly and much less healthy.

Instead, just about every night we are apart I get to hear how her day went and what she is eating. At first I was kinda bugged by it.

Her: “So then in class CHOMP the professor said CHOMP CHOMP that he wouldn’t call on students without a prior warning CHOMP CHOMP but then…”

Me: “What is that?”

Her: “Tortilla chips.”

Me: “Oh, continue.”

Finally I asked her why she ate on the phone. She told me that normal couples — meaning those who don’t live in different cities during the workweek —have dinner conversations. They are not forced to eat by themselves, which quite frankly is kinda lonely, so she feels the urge to call me when she is eating.

At which point, I got up from my couch in DC, walked into the kitchen and got me some cheese. Then we ate on the phone together.