February 01, 2004
The Phantom Menace
Anyone who has the slightest familiarity with the happenings of my life (and I feel bad for you, if you do) realizes that I am a type of person who seemingly attracts idiots and imbeciles everywhere I go. The reason for this awful trend remains dubious at best, although I would venture that it is either a result of: (1) Fate; (2) my self-aggrandizing egotistical belief that the world revolves around me; or (3) pheromones. Personally, I really hope it's not the first reason because I don't know if I could go on knowing that I'm destined to encounter more incompetence for the rest of my life! Plus, if it were the third reason, I could just use a better soap and wash away all those pesky pheromones! All this is besides the point. The point of this entry is to discuss yet another potent force of destruction that has plagued me since high school—the phantom telephonist.
Everyone gets those random telephone calls where the phone rings, you pick up, no one speaks, but the line doesn't go dead. It's just a matter of fact. If you have a phone, you have experienced at least one of these idiotic calls before. Have you ever stopped to wonder who the rat bastards are who do the calling? And don't even pretend like it's not an insidious scheme hatched by some evil conglomeration of crackpots designed to destroy us all, because we all know you would just be denying the obvious.
My first experience of regular harassment began circa 9th grade, when I started having to answer all the phone calls while I was at home by myself. At its peak, I was getting around two calls a day from assholes who would just breathe on the line and not say anything! Just breathe! You think that's funny you piece of shit?! You think it's funny? It's not funny. Making me get up and go pick up the phone and then answer it, and then you don't even say anything?!
WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?! That's worse than a damn telemarketer. At least with telemarketers I have the opportunity to yell at a person. But with your stupid calls, I don't even have the pleasure of vulgarity! I could yell and scream for ten minutes, but it would be all for naught! You would still just sit there in that dark room with your child porn in the background, breathing on the line and laughing silently to yourself! Well, ROT IN THE HELL, ASSHOLE!
The trend has continued virtually unrelentingly since then, although the average has lessened to about one call every other day. However, today, at the height of my absolute exhaustion after a long night of pseudo-intensity, I was awakened by my cell phone vibrating in my pocket (let me tell you—that's a weird way to wake up), and a private caller at 10 am, after I had gone to bed at 6 am. Better be good, right? I picked up the phone groggily only to realize a few seconds and a few failed hello
attempts later that it was once again the nameless, faceless phantom whose sole purpose in life is to drive me to insanity. I was so pissed that I actually just yelled, I hate you and I hope you die you piece of shit!
Then I slammed the phone shut (as much as you can do that with a cell).
Two hours later, I once again was awakened by a private call! This has continued throughout the day every few hours and I'm to the point of throwing my phone out the window! Who do these people think they are? Do they think that they can call with impunity? Well, I'm here to say that they can't. You hear me assholes? This isn't over! I'm going to find you some day and then you're in for it. I'm going to sneak up on you, in your dark basement closet with child porn in the background, and I'm going to beat you senseless with my cell phone. I would then go after your family, but given who you are and what you do, it would be pointless—you indubitably have no human contact outside of your insipid phone attacks. After this, I plan to tie you up with telephone cords and place you in a room full of ringing telephones until you bleed from the ears. Of course, I might be describing your wet dream, so we'll see.
In any case, for those of you who share my hate for this phantom menace, I encourage you wholeheartedly to start a campaign of pain against these people. And if you are one of those people, just kill yourself and save us all the trouble!
That shit was fuckin' tight. FUCK THE NO-NAME CALLERS!!! And you know what else, fuck those people who get wrong numbers. I hate that shit even more. I keep getting this random lady with a thick accent calling me. She asks me if she can speak to somebody whose name I will never be able to pronounce. She's called me at least 10 times. I want to find her and just tattoo the number she obviously has a hard time dialing onto her forehead. Hopefully that'll do the trick. If not that then I gusse I could probably go on with the torture and just keep reminding her that she's dialed the wrong number. Either way, like you said Rohit, people are stupid.
Posted by Bobo | February 02, 2004 13:31:45 -0800 | Permalink
Seriously! I got two MORE freakin' phone calls today! One while in class and one while in the library, buried underground! I'm going to kill someone!
Posted by Rohit | February 02, 2004 18:30:03 -0800 | Permalink
Dude, saying you attract idiots and imbeciles is like saying you attract water. It's in a glass over there on the desk, and it's in the shower in the next room, and MY GOD, IT'S COMING DOWN FROM THE SKY!
Uh, yeah, I guess my point is that the world is filled with idiots and imbeciles.
Also, I'd like to point out an experience from high school. The second line in the house was all mine after we got broadband. It's all good for a few days. Then every four hours, I get one of those no-name callers. Four hours like clockwork. I swear I can hear breathing, but this is like to-the-second every four hours, so this person's life must revolve around harassing me.
I let myself get pretty pissed about it before I try dailing *69. I get some guys machine, and leave an angry message. Stop calling me, I say, or I'll call the police.
The calls continue for a few more days, I'm getting really pissed. Then one day, the phone rings NOT at the right time. It's early by like a half hour. I pick up. "Hello?i".
"Hi, my name is so-and-so, I got your message. I'm really sorry! When I went away on vacation, I set my fax machine to try to forward my faxes to the hotel. But I must have dialed the wrong number into it. I'm really sorry.i"
He sounded very genuine, and my number is only like two digits away from the HB Marriot. I apologize for threatening him and hang up.
I truly honestly thought I heard breathing on the other end, but I simply must have been wrong. This guy sounded really honest, and the story adds up perfectly. Anyways, a few years later, I found this website that offers this basic explanation: there are a shitload of computers talking to each other over phone lines in the world. An incredibly high number; a lot more than you would guess. Occasionally, things just don't work out, perhaps the line is bad and the tones are distorted, so the phone company misinterprets the dialing. Perhaps you have the phone number of some old computer. Perhaps some card reader somewhere had an internal fault and just flat out dialed the wrong number.
They gave a lot of numbers to back this up, talking about how the computers in the world make more phone calls than the people...
Anyways, try *69, or call the phone company. Or, better yet, setup your phone to not ring when unknown callers call. That's what I did (the only caller id blocked people that call me are my parents, and I just tell them to dial *71 first to turn that off).
Posted by Cody | February 04, 2004 23:43:49 -0800 | Permalink
Ah a logical explanation. Dammit! That ruins all the conspiracy theories! The calls have once again subsided on my cell phone, but I found out that all dorm numbers come off as private, so it might have just been someone who somehow discovered my cell number screwing around with me.
As for my room number, the only people who call that are fools who are locked out, so I usually screen those calls. And this whole thing just goes to show how much computers suck and why they should be hated even more than they already are!
Posted by Rohit | February 05, 2004 16:35:41 -0800 | Permalink