During these last few critical weeks I've been leaving the phone ringer on all night. It was an easy decision, because there was a call I was waiting for. The Call. As it turned out, it didn't come in the middle of the night. It came a little after noon last Tuesday, and I was wide awake.

The reason I started turning off the phone at night is simple. It's the three-hour time difference between here and the east coast.

Maybe that doesn't sound so simple, but a nationwide toll-free business number rings on my home phone, and people who call toll-free numbers can be pretty cavalier about their dialing habits. If they don't have to pay for the call, they don't care if they wake me up at five o'clock in the morning. To them, it's eight o'clock and people are supposed to be ready to do business.

So far, since I've been leaving the phone on all night, I haven't been jarred awake at five o'clock in the morning. Now that I don't need to wait for The Call any more, I should probably go back to the old system, but as long as those people back east don't start phoning at five, I think I'll keep things the way they are.

There's one big advantage to this system. If I don't have to jump out of bed Monday morning and turn the ringer back on, I can sleep until the phone does ring. It might buy me an extra fifteen minutes (or two hours) when I need sleep the most. It's a risky trade-off, the gamble of a 5 am call against the slim prospect of a few minutes of extra sleep. But what's life without a little danger?

Besides, I'm nearly as likely to be asleep at two in the afternoon as I am at five in the morning. Sleep patterns are a little erratic and haphazard these days.