Category Archives: phone calls

cold shoulder, night, panic, phone calls

Ringing in the Night

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Last night was one of those nights that can be panic inducing. At about 2:30 am I heard my cell phone ringing down the hall in my office. I figured it must be a wrong number or someone who would leave a message. But, a few seconds later, it rang again. So I got out of bed and trudged down the hall to my office, well prepared to take the head off any idiot calling at that time of night without a good reason.

When I looked, the calls were from L. The worry ticker started up right away. It is not usual for L to call at that time of night, let alone be up and about then. I immediately called back to see what was going on, picturing some really disastrous event of happenstance, maybe even a death of someone we knew. So can you guess what brought on these multiple calls in the wee hours of the morning?

L had called to tell me that at least one of the scenes with L and the Son as extras in a movie (that was shot here several years ago and just released) survived the editors knife. L and the Son had downloaded the movie and just finished watching it and noted that the scene was preserved and I was thanked (in the rather anonymous form of “Thanks to the Mayor of XYZ”).

That was indeed interesting news, but it clearly didn’t warrant the heart attack side-effects of calling me repeatedly at that time of the night. At least not from my point of view. Needless to say, my response fell a bit below the level of excitement desired by L. It was the kind of news that I would have dropped an email about and called it good – especially in the middle of the night.

As any married man knows, failing to display the desired amount of enthusiasm when called by your wife any time of the day or night is punishable by freezing to death. It makes no difference that you had been in bed for hours and had to be up in several more. It even makes no difference if you are in the middle of a meeting deciding the fate of the universe as we know it. You should always be prepared to exhibit the precise amount of excitement desired. Otherwise, the icicles coming out the phone may very well cause brain damage or even death.

Took me hours to warm back up.

messages, phone calls

Odd Happenings

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This afternoon as I walked through the kitchen, I noticed that the answering machine was flashing that there was a message. Being the good little robot that I am, I veered over to the machine to give a listen. When I pressed the play button there was a period of noise followed by a rather shaky rendition of “…have you talked to your mother today…”. The call ended with some additional noise, leading me to think that I had been butt dialed by a octogenarian.

I almost deleted the message, but there was something familiar about the voice. So I checked the caller ID and sure enough it was mom’s friend Ruth (who does indeed happen to be in her 90’s).

I did the logical thing and called mom to see if she knew what was happening. (I was planning to call her cell phone next and then head over to her house if I still hadn’t reached her.) Mom’s first words after hello were “so you got a call from Ruth too?” Turns out that Ruth had called just about everyone out of concern for mom this morning when mom’s phone busied out off-hook and Ruth couldn’t reach her.

After we got that all straightened out, mom was laughing at what had happened. She had a call this morning and the caller had wanted a recipe. So mom set down the phone she had answered and grabbed another phone to discuss the recipe (I suspect after she found it.). After completing the call, she hung up the phone in hand, but forgot to hang up the other phone. So her phone line rang busy off-hook and Ruth could not get mom on the phone, thus triggering the string of calls, including the one I received.

It’s good that mom has dedicated and concerned friends like Ruth. But I do hope that in the future she’ll call me on my office line – that way she might get me immediately rather than the answering machine and me at some indefinite time in the future.  And it would be nice if said something like “This is Ruth.” when she gets the answering machine. {*grin*}

phone calls

Oh What Fun!

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Today was one of those days when I got good and bad phone calls.

I needed to go to the accountants office to pick a fax to forward on to L. So I planned on heading over about the time they opened so that it would be one less thing to remember through the day. Before I could mosey out the door, my phone rang and I got what I at first thought was a pornographic call. You know, the heavy breathing and a few grunts with no response to my repeated hellos. Finally a synthesized voice comes on and wants to talk to the mayor. I admit I am the mayor and inquire as to the reason for the call. The voice comes back with a ranting litany of ills due to the way Housing Authority is operated. I suspect that the person on the other end had fed a prepared rant into his synthesizer, because no matter how many times I interjected that has nothing to do with the operation of Housing Authority, the rant rolled on. Finally the rant ended and I once again pointed out that has nothing to do with the operation of Housing Authority. Got a curt “Well, uh, uh, you’ll be sorry!” followed by a hangup. If I were less of a nice guy, I’d call the gentleman up around midnight and rant at him for something he has nothing to do with. But I won’t ’cause I’m just not that into wasting time. {*grin*}

I proceeded to pick up the fax and then sent it off to L. No sooner had the fax machine beeped its last, then I got another phone call. This one was a fun phone call (to the right number even). The host of a Japanese exchange student wanted to arrange for the student to meet with me and give me a letter from the mayor of his home city in Japan along with a token gift. As his host pointed out, what he was really hoping for was to get his picture in the local paper presenting the letter and gift to me so that he could take copies of the paper home with him. So I set it up for him to present the letter and gift at tomorrow’s city council meeting. What the exchange student doesn’t know is that I then quickly drafted a letter to the mayor of his town and had a package of pins with the city seal put together that I will give to the student tomorrow. It will be interesting to watch his reaction. It would be even more fun to see the reaction of The Honorable Toshiaki Ohno, Mayor of Inazawa City when he gets the letter and pins (and the student’s picture in the local newpaper).  If I had a bit more time, I would have given it to the wife of our Police Chief to translate into Japanese. (She is Japanese, met the Chief while he was stationed in Japan in the military.)

Well, I need to head for bed since i have a meeting about our water treatment plans with the EPA and State Department of Health early in the morning. Unfortunately, the meeting is in Denver so we are going to have to leave early for the two hour drive to the meeting. We’ll probably get back here with just enough time to grab an apple before heading to the city council meeting tomorrow night. So don’t count on an early blog entry tomorrow.