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Wednesday, October 08, 2008


"The Struggles of a Desperate Telephone"

I discovered something today: For the past few weeks, my telephone has been trying to tell me something. It's been in pain, and I haven't realized the true magnitude of it's enduring struggle.

Weeks ago, the symptoms started showing up. First, the line was plagued with static. Callers would be drowned out by the crackling, and while it was a random occurrence, and didn't affect every call, it still became a major annoyance. My roommate and I called the phone company, and they said they'd send a technician out to fix the problem. We never saw him, but he must have done something, because for a while, the static vanished.

Sometime later, though, that static returned just as before. Only this time, my phone went a step further, and starting ringing at random times throughout the day. When I'd pick up the receiver, no one was on the other end of the line.

Most recently -- it's desperate cries for help still unanswered -- my phone just stopped ringing altogether. As we later found out, incoming calls weren't getting through. Whether this was the fault of my phone itself, or that which was ailing it, we don't know. Needless to say, we thought nothing of it, since, afterall, if the phone wasn't ringing, that probably just meant no one was calling.

Early this morning, my desperate telephone gave up on being ignored, and took matters into it's own hands. At about 2am, our doorbell rang.

When Scott opened the front door, two uniformed police officers were standing there, both with concerned expressions on their faces. They were responding to a 911 call from our phone... at our apartment. The thing is, neither Scott nor I had called anyone all day. And no one had called here either. Apparently, when the 911 call was registered at the dispatch center, it was filled with static, and then disconnected. Classic sign of a possible call for help. The dispatcher tried to call back, but there was no answer. On our end, the phone never rang.

So... he/she dispatched a squad car: two officers, armed, no siren.

Apparently this sort of thing, though infrequent, does happen. Sometimes it's a technical issue, other times, it really is a domestic dispute. The police never know what to expect, so they come prepared -- as these guys did. Thankfully, all they had to do, however, was take down names, and write up a short police report. False alarm. Still, for two unassuming "night owls" (Scott and myself), it was a wake up call... something HAD to be fixed with our phone. Message received.

Later this morning, and before heading off to work, Scott called the phone company, stressing the seriousness of the issue. An hour later, a technician had fixed the problem. All these weeks, our phone line had been "sharing voltage with another line", hense the static, the strange ringing, and most recently, the dropped calls. It also appears that our phone was randomly calling other numbers... and, last night, had done so numerous times to 911. Thus the police visit.

Yeah, that's certainly not something you experience every night. But with me... strange as it may sound, I actually seem to attract interesting experiences. Like being stopped at gunpoint by a number of armed soldiers -- while trying to enter a enter a U.S. Navy base (in order to visit my sister). Or, almost falling off a cliff as a toddler (and being dashed by the rocks below), saved only by a small little tree growing out of the edge of the cliff.

Yes, life is never dull in my end of the world. And now, I can apparently add the story of how my telephone got so tired of being ignored... that it called 911. Yep, good times, good times! :)

-Jon

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Jon Baas

Blogging Since 2002!
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