A friend (not me!) bought a new mobile phone a few years ago…back then the ‘latest’ handset cost a fortune (there were no ‘deals’ to be had in the early days). Hers cost £300.
So we’re all sat in the pub and she receives a call. At the end of the call, one of the chaps, deeply impressed by the new phone, goes “wow, is that the new Nokia?”
“Yes!” she replied proudly, and held it out for him to take and admire.
“Very cool!” he enthused, taking hold of it…and then it slipped from his delicate admiring grasp straight into his pint of Flowers Bitter. Fizz, sputter… a pint of decent ale ruined.
Sadly, the lady’s boyfriend was seated opposite her, and was in mid-chug on a pint of Murphy’s at that fateful moment… instant guffaw…another pint of jolly nice beer ruined and so was her blouse, which was the unfortunate recipient of most of it.
You know, there are those strange little silences that seem to descend from above, when time stands still and everyone stares…and in spite of someone’s obvious anguish, the only course of action is for the entire place to erupt with uncontrolled laughter…
When I first moved into an apartment out in LA many moons ago I kept getting calls from drunks trying to order pizza. My number was one digit off from a local pizza joint or there was a typo in the phone book or something. I called the telephone company and asked them to change my number and they said they’d be happy to for a fee.
So, I started taking orders for pizza – and I called the pizza joint and told them all about it. A day or two later I got a call from the phone company saying that they needed to change my number…
Hey Lawrence…you’re from Spokane!!! That’s where I grew up! Graduated Marycliff High School 1979 and Whitworth College 1983. My parents still live there, and we go back at least once a year.
Small world, eh?
On the topic of that oh-so-common Episcopal greeting:
Several members of our church choir are not members of the church. Last Sunday, the rector was trying to get us to settle down to pray before going to the back of the nave to process. She said “The Lord be with you” several times, but one young man…a newbie…kept right on talking. Finally one of the other non-members shushed him by explaining that “The Lord be with you” is Episcopalian for “shut up”! It’s true…shout it in a crowd at just about any parish in the country and everyone will immediately stop talking, turn to face you, respond “and also with you” and wait to hear what you have to say…it’s like magic!
I have some friends who, at their previous house, had to have an answering machine message that said “If you are trying to reach a doctor’s office or a lawyer’s office, you have the wrong number.” They were one digit off from BOTH. Of course, they still got plenty of messages for both the doctor and the lawyer.
Most people seem to be concentrating on what to say instead of listening to the message machine. It’s amazing how much confidence they have in their ability to dial the right number.
Jon
At one time, my phone number was nearly the same as one of the larger plumbing repair services in town (two digits transposed) and I got a lot of wrong numbers on the answering machine. I ususally deleted them unless the person said it was an emergency, in which case I would call back and let the caller know. After a while, I ended my outgoing messgae with, “…and this is not Dean’s Plumbing”. That stopped the wrong numbers.
I work as a technical support specialist for a biotech company and our 800 number is very close to the number for a building suppy company. Even though we always answer the phone “(company name) technical support biotech division, can I help you” 90% of the wrong numbers still will ask for metal picture hanging brackets or similar things. I had one lady insist on talking to my supervisor because I wouldn’t give her the price for said picture brackets despite repeatedly stating that we make automated DNA sequencing and imaging equipment and giving her the correct number to call. So of course, I patched her through. She apparently yelled at him for five minutes stating she would never do business with us. My boss said “I think that would be a good idea for both of us ma’am” then she hung up.
We had another guy continuously call into our mobile phone number asking for Tiffany. Every time we stated he had a wrong number and that this was a business line. We thought he might eventually give up since a different voice, male and female, answered every call. I eventually said something like “she’s in the shower right now, can I get your name and number and have her call you bacK? I think she’s pretty booked up this week” He didn’t call back after that, but he did leave a name and number.
Ron, as a former amateur radio enthusiast, my sides now ache from laughing so hard over this story!
I’m sure most of the people reading this have no idea what “CQ DX” even means… and obviously neither did the people in the church!
Lawrence, apparently it really is a small world… I know a local pastor who did the same thing earlier this year!
I have another good story about the limitless stupidity of some of the people out there. Two friends of mine used to work (as teenagers) in a centralized call center for Pizza Hut, where they took orders from all over their area and routed them to the appropriate restaurant to make the pizza. One of them took a call from a guy, and when they asked for his address, he said he’d give it to the driver when he got there.
raindog1970 wrote:
I’m sure most of the people reading this have no idea what “CQ DX” even means… and obviously neither did the people in the church!
Well???
I don’t know the precise meaning, It’s been 35 years since I studied to be a ham and I got hung up on the code (back then all licenses required some level of proficiency in morse code) and never got my license. My brother has been a ham for forty+ years though. I suppose I could ask him but the general meaning is “seeking contact, distance” I believe. It’s sort of an “is anybody out there” call.
It’s followed by you call sign, as in CQ DX CQ DX DE AA1PT
CQ = Is anybody out there?
DX = distant or far away.
DE = This is.
The call signs have geographic significance. In my case, Northeastern US.
So basically, it’s Is anybody out there, and the farther away from the Northeastern US, the better.
A couple of years back I was cycling home, in my cups, and singing quietly to myself because I’d been singing in the session at the local hostelry.
The next day a colleague told me I’d rung her number and sung down the phone to her, raucously, for several minutes. How my phone dialled her, and then hung up again, all without my knowledge, is a beer goggles mystery.
Recently I was watching the Matrix Regurgitated at the local cinema, and right in the middle of the Trinity deathscene, very touching sob sob and all that, the mobile of a bloke across the aisle rings. Rather than running out of the auditorium in sheer embarrassment from ignoring all the warnings to turn off phones, this geezer pulls it out and starts a conversation. The audience were shocked speechless at this blatant lack of consideration, but his date for the night leant over and suggested he take it elsewhere. Only then did he seem aware that he was in a cinema.
Years ago I worked the evening shift with a guy who had a jealous battle axe for a wife. He was a pretty nice guy but she would call him seven or eight times every night to make sure he was still at work (they’d been married several years, too, I don’t know how he put up with it).
Anyway, all of us had had our fill of crawling out from under a piece of equipment to answer the phone only to find it was her querolously asking to speak to her hubby. One particularly bad night after I’d banged my head disentangling myself from equipment to answer the phone, I told her, “no, Gary left about 45 minutes ago, his wife picked him up.”
I don’t know what kind of fight they had when the poor guy got home but she never called again.
