My friends have been worried about me lately. I’ve been calling them at odd hours, often late at night, leaving voiceless messages.
But’s not me, I swear. My cell phone is possessed.
At first it was just inconvenient. I’d open my phone to use it, and before I touched anything it would pick out a number for me and dial it. “Hey! Whoa!” I’d snap it shut and start over. No harm done.
But last Saturday noon my friend Kjell called me. “You okay? I got a message from you at 1am, but all I heard was bar noise in the background.” I remembered that my phone had died around 9pm, so I tossed it into my coat pocket. I didn’t resuscitate it until I left the bar around 1:30am, so apparently it booty-called him while it was off, a voice from the dead. And although I adore Kjell, male country singers are not my first booty choice.
At 5am Monday morning I was awakened by scratchy voices in my bedroom. I thought I heard the “If you’d like to make a call. . . ” lady’s voice, and my phone was all aglow in the dark. “Hey! Whoa!” It is surprisingly hard to shut off a phone when it is already off.
I met a friend for dinner later that day. “What’s with calling me at 5am?” she asked. “I heard heavy breathing, like snoring. Or maybe drowning.” She looked at me skeptically while I stammered an explanation. I even tried to show her a demo, but of course in front of her my phone had perfect manners. Worse, now show knows I’m a noisy sleeper.
My phone provider told me to bring it in for a software update. They were currently using version 8, I was at 3. It took about an hour, and as soon as I got into my car my phone self-dialed Verizon. At least it has a sense of humor.
My friend Raoul insists on carrying his phone in his back pocket. He butt-dials, and I get to overhear his scintillating conversations about real estate deeds. I yell “Hang up your phone!” but he can’t hear me through his pants. I’m so very afraid that someday he’s going to butt-dial me over a dinner of refried beans.
And then it happened, the Holy Grail of cell phone dialing. We were at the bar late, Raoul shifted in his chair, and butt-dialed a woman at 12:30am—a booty booty call.
At my old job my phone used to call my boss. One Saturday afternoon while I was shopping and having lunch with a girlfriend, it called him and left a 45 minute recording of our conversation. Luckily I hadn’t said anything bad or embarrassing about anyone, especially him.