I hate my best friend Kate. She works at the Barnstable Post Office, by the way. You can’t miss her. She has a smile the size of Texas. Want to know why she’s smiling? I’ll tell you.

She told me about SpaceWeather.com.

Kate loves sky happenings. One night, we sat in her yard freezing to death during a thousands-per-hour meteor shower. I didn’t see any.

I miss everything. At fireworks, I’m always in the bathroom during the finale. I rush out as everyone’s heading to their cars. I lost my glasses during the recent lunar eclipse, that I therefore didn’t see.

I always set my alarm and stumble around outside in the night when Northern Lights have been predicted, but I’ve never seen them. There’s usually a photo in the next paper of the most amazingly colorful auroras, that swashbuckled across the sky five seconds after I went back to bed. You name it. I’ve missed it.

During our meteor party, when Kate yelled, “There’s one!” I’d be either blowing my nose, tying my shoes or trying to unhook a stuck zipper on my coat.

So, naturally I was psyched about spaceweather.com. I paid $14.85 for a three month membership so they’d alert me about unusual solar activity. I checked the box, “Call me around the clock.”

Here’s why I hate Kate. Although the service was her idea, she has not signed up for it herself. That’s because they do call – frequently, and it’s usually around 3 AM when Bob and I smash our heads together from being startled awake by the booming voice of Doctor Tony Phillips, the biggest space weather geek in the universe, so to speak.

I checked the boxes for ALL unusual sky events. I get an “Alert!” for everything from “solar wind gusts” to any “geomagnetic activity”, which, since I’ve gone outside each time the doctor’s called, must mean that milkweed spores are flying around his house, because I never see anything around mine. I quote the crazy doctor’s last alert, “The planetary K-index has reached a level of 7!” I don’t know what the heck a K-index is, but I’ll tell you this; Tony needs to get a dog or something. He’s got way too much spare time. It’s a recorded alert, so I can’t pick up the phone and scream, “Get a life and get out of mine!” which I’d really like to do.

So, back to hating Kate. When I emailed her about the calls, this is exactly what she emailed back. “That is FUNNY!!!!!!! hahahahaha . . . glad you subscribed and I didn’t!!!!!!!” Frankly, I don’t find it all that funny. But apparently Kate does.

I know that columnists shouldn’t use their columns for revenge, but that’s what I’m doing. I’d love to publish her private phone number so that we could all call her at 3 AM and get a good laugh out of waking her up, since she finds my situation oh-so-amusing. But I don’t think my editor would let me do that. So instead, I suggest that if you see Kate at the post office, tell her that Saralee hates her guts. Then you ought to wish her a good night’s sleep.

Because  . . .  I’ve got her number.