Friday, December 19, 2008

Can You Hear Me Now?


Eric and I haven't ever had a home land line phone in the time we've lived together. It's been nine or so years since I personally have had one. There was a point in 2000 or so when I had three voice mails to keep track of; home, office and cell phone. Doing so was exhausting and costly so I opted to ditch the one at home. Work voice mail was mandatory and incredibly important and if I wished, I could forward the work calls to my cell phone and its proprietary VM system. Doing so made everything seem right in the world. K.I.S.S. ...or as simple as possible. Since then I've only been wireless.

We moved to Toronto ON four and a half months ago and traded in our U.S. cell phones for Canadian ones. I suppose we could have kept our service from San Francisco but doing so would cost an arm and a leg. We'd also have missed the opportunity to pay an equally insane amount for mobile communications here in T.O. Ah, the joy of access fees, eh?

So, new cell phone in hand I very quickly realized the number assigned me had been very recently associated with a moving company. How incredibly fortunate for me to be receiving very random calls regarding my moving services. In short time those calls stopped coming, thank the gods. All became rather normal and routine except for the odd "wrong number." Until last week. There were about ten separate calls, some seemingly with no one on the other end of the line. The number on the caller ID kept changing but all the variants were of an excessive length and a couple of them started with a "9." Perhaps out-of-country? Would caller ID register if so? Except for several, "hello, hellos" no one would speak to me. The calls finally stopped. Annoying as they were, Rogers Wireless would be no help at all. The customer rep I spoke to stated that the system hadn't even registered those calls to my phone. What? 'Tis true.

Flash forward one week to tonight. I was unavailable to take any of the numerous calls that rang my phone for ten minutes straight. Whomever it was kept calling, letting the phone ring and then hanging up and repeating the process. They didn't even try to leave a voice mail. And the caller ID was blocked. Go figure. Eric finally answered for me. The caller wouldn't identify himself or why he wanted to speak to me, only mentioning that it was "personal." He also wouldn't leave Eric his number for my call-back. Go figure. End of phone call. I was able to answer the next time it rang...it was his girlfriend. She wouldn't identify herself either but mentioned that her boyfriend was under the impression that she was having an affair with someone at my end of the line.

Please feel free to clue-in at the sound of the beep. "beep"

I politely informed her that she and her boyfriend had reached the home of two gay guys and that I had no idea what was going on at her end of the line and that they shouldn't call my number again. I then hung up.

Rogers Wireless immediately got another phone call. The experience wasn't very amusing and I figured it should at least be documented. I had hoped they could do something on their end to determine who had called. Not that I wanted to know. I just wanted it documented on my account in case the situation escalated. No. Can. Do. Great. Go figure (x3)

So, I am done with that cell number. Both the Rogers rep and I agreed that number needed to be retired. I now have a new one. I asked for a number that has been out of circulation for a lengthy time. Hopefully my new number wasn't used in the recent past by a drug dealer or escort. Cross your fingers for me. Please. LOL

If I haven't yet called, sent a text, or otherwise informed you of my "new digits," please contact me so I can do so.

"Can you hear me now?"

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