Is Bernice There?

I’ve stopped answering my phone. I used to answer all the calls, even from area codes where I don’t know anyone. Sometimes you’d hear no one on the line but sometimes you’d hear someone ask, “Is Bernice there?” When I was younger and less wise, I’d say, “You have the wrong number.” Now I know it’s not a live person at all asking for Bernice. It’s a recording and the name is just a pretext for getting me to answer some questions to phish for my information or record my voice for whatever sorcery the telemarketing company is up to. I guess they chose the name Bernice because it’s an uncommon name these days. But what happens when they ask for Bernice and a woman named Bernice answers? “Yes,” she’ll say, brightly and professionally, assuming someone wants to speak to her of something important. Perhaps she has left a message with a contractor for her kitchen renovations, or she’s waiting to hear back from her child’s school. Does the recording just patter on with, “Well, maybe you can help me,” assuming someone other than Bernice has answered, confusing an actual Bernice? Does a person come on the line to talk to Bernice, having no idea what to say after a real, live Bernice answers? Does he stammer about life insurance or important information about your credit card? Does the phone explode in a cosmic Mobius strip of feedback, as Bernice actually reveals herself to be real, collapsing the whole venture into the rubble of irony? And where does this leave Bernice? Does her heart break a little when she realizes nobody actually wants to talk to her, that it’s all a scam using her name? Does she hang up the phone and analyze further, thinking, “They only used my name because nobody names their kids Bernice anymore and they thought they’d never get anyone with my name” and suddenly feel dizzyingly, claustrophobically alone in this world?