I picked up my phone last night to call in a prescription refill, and found to my surprise that I had no dial tone. I'm not a big phone person, and I don't use the land line all that much (I've converted to the Cell Side of the Force far more than I ever thought I would), so I don't even know how long it had been out. Much wrestling with support options led me finally to the live chat--that's where you're typing live* to a support person. He tested the line to confirm that it wasn't their problem, then told me to unplug all the phones from the jacks so he could test it again.
*I know, I know, as opposed to typing dead. You know what I mean!
Grumbling a bit, I went to the jack to unplug it ... and it was already unplugged. The hell? It didn't just fall out, and the cats lack the opposable thumbs to pull it out. It's behind a bookcase. How did that happen?
I went back to the chat and apologized for taking his time with my goof (he was nice about it, though I imagine the "you won't believe this idiot" stories get shared on breaks). And I realized, when checking the line for that dial tone, the line was buzzing a few times first, which means that I had messages on my voice mail.
Voice mail. See, I'm old school: I still use my answering machine. What, it works! But when the line didn't get through, calls went to my never-even-personalized voice mail (for the system I got in January 2010, ahem). Hmm. I was too tired last night to deal with it, so I left it to tonight. Because I had to learn how to access the VM, and I didn't figure that would be easy.
And it wasn't, but it wasn't that hard, though they made me do all the personalizing first, before letting me listen to the ...
... six messages? Six?
Dating back to March 9th?
Well, I guess that weird thing was unplugged for a while, huh? And I never even noticed. Interesting. It probably happened when I was moving things around in the office ... though I don't quite see how, that was about when.
Four of them were auto-calls from the pharmacy, no big deal, and one was confirming a doctor's appointment that I remembered all by myself.
But Mum, back on March 19th, I wasn't ignoring you! Promise!
Postscript: there was a message on the answering machine when I got home today, too; when it rains, etc. Why is a sales guy from the Bruins calling me, do you suppose? Just to encourage me to buy tickets? That's pretty random.
I mostly knit, sometimes crochet or cross-stitch. I read, a lot. I love cats. I love hockey, especially my no-longer-local team, the Boston Bruins. Want more? Read on.
Does that mean you don't really need your land line? We have to have one with DirecTV but not sure we'd have one otherwise.
ReplyDeleteHow do you suppose it came undone though? I bet the cats conspired to trick you. You know they can really squeeze down into nothing if they try.
Carlos unplugged it. He wants you allllll to himself.
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