CRAZY TAXI

Long ago (relative to a twentysomething's lifetime) I once asked a recently relocated friend for his new digits. To my dismay, he didn't know what it was. He shrugged, saying: "I never call myself."

Well, it sure is a good thing I know my number because I've been calling myself (on my un-losable all day long. Right now I'm about 95% certain that I left my cell phone in the cab I took to work. I exited the vehicle at about 7:00 a.m., but didn't realize it was gone until about 1:30 p.m. At that point I gave myself a call, hoping to find a bemused commuter on the other end. Even a grumpy dispatcher would do. Instead, I found nothing but my own disembodied, denasalized voice greeting me. Over and over and over again.

This isn't the first time I've left this cab in a taxi cab, either. Blog and I made a summer jaunt (you could even say "progulka") to New York City last year, and one evening I just left the phone behind. Luckily I realized this within moments and started plugging quarters into the nearby pay phone. How exactly I got it back is a bit of a story, but Pretty Little Head is to thank.

Back to today: Eventually I gave up and placed a call to Sprint for advice on what to do. They gave me a Sophie's Choice-like proposition: Leave my service as is so I could keep trying my phone and risk someone using my phone to call 900 (or 809) numbers. Or turn off the service and probably never see the phone again.

I decided to leave it on for another day or so. So, if you're a reader who has my partially palindromic phone number -- most of you, probably -- give me a call and then afterward tell me what you find.

P.S. About those work phones -- recently all the phones in my office building were replaced with brand new Avaya phones. Up to this point I was vaguely aware that Avaya had something to do with business communications, but that was about it. Now, you could say, I'm "living in the state of Avaya." How is it? Well, it's marginally better than the old phone system, but I won't really be happy until Wayne Brady comes in and does improv to amuse us during the dull early morning hours.

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posted by WWB at 6:05 PM |