February 2, 2000
Hung up about pesky phone calls
By GARRETT LEIVA
Herald editor
I've been on both the receiver and mouthpiece end of collect calls, prank calls, conference calls, wrong number calls, party line calls and long distance romance calls. Last week, however, was my first nearly mistaken for Regis Philbin call.
Now let me first start by stating that the voice resonating from my lungs and larynx sounds nothing like a game show host. Maybe a cheesy morning drive DJ if I strain my vocal chords with the right amount of intonation. Instead, it was all a matter of ill-fated timing and the availability of a dial tone.
Being a newspaper writer, I field dozens of phone calls during any given workday - unlike a journalist, however, most are not irate readers. I also make a duo plus decem or so calls. Never before though have I been the barer of bad news by simply stating my name.
She picked up the phone on the first ring with a hopeful "Hello." I promptly asked if so-and-so was there. She said this was so-and-so speaking - well, actually she used her first name and not a hyphenated noun. Then I introduced myself. Silence. After an infinite amount of milliseconds, the conversation transmission popped back into gear with a few polite shifting of words. Then she laughed.
"You know when you first called I thought you were Regis," she admitted. It turned out that she had successfully dialed through to the hit television game show, "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" and was told to expect a phone call that afternoon that could qualify her as a possible contestant. I felt like a telemarketer selling vials of bubonic plague at $19.95 plus shipping and handling.
Of course I would never peddle a disease that once wiped out half the population of Europe. After all, I hate talking on the phone.
Call me phone-a-phobic, but when the telephone rings it falls on the deafness of selective hearing. In the world of telecommunication I am what is known as a 'screener.' Consequently, the amount of ringing at our house has little to do with popularity; we just haven't bothered to change the number of rings it takes to activate the answering machine.
Perhaps my phone hang up is rooted in some traumatic childhood incident involving two paper cups, a length of string and not properly bonding with 'Ma Bell.' More likely it has to do with telemarketers calling at 6 p.m. using a chain letter-like hard sell to switch long distance carriers - a man in Iowa didn't switch and he was run over by a heard of chickens - from what sounds like the boiler room in purgatory.
This is why your fingers could walk for miles and never stumble across my name in the Yellow Pages. Ironically, the only harassing calls made to our unlisted number is by our phone company trying to sell us Caller ID.
I'm far from alone with my anti-social telephone tendencies. Caller identification and privacy manager systems allow people to separate the wheat from the crank call chaff. Call waiting, much like junior high, lets you put your current friend on hold while you see if there is someone cooler beeping in on the other line.
Then there is the Star wars phenomena. Now you can *69 to find out who just called to see if your refrigerator is running, unless they thwart that attempt by pushing *67, thus enacting a faux Klingon phone cloaking device.
All of which makes you wonder if Mr. Watson was around if he would even bother picking up the phone. Then again, today's telephone technology could have saved a few hassles for any would-be "Jenny" unlucky enough to have the number 867-5309 immortalized in the tribute to bathroom wall graffiti by Tommy Tutone.
Despite constant changing technologies, my philosophy toward a ringing phone remains simple: let it. If it's a collect call, prank call, or telemarketer, then Mr. So-and-So isn't here right now. If it's someone named Regis, it's probably a wrong number but I'll pick up anyway.
Grand Traverse Herald editor Garret Leiva can be reached at 933-1416 or e-mail at gleiva(at)gtherald.com