We've lived in this house for 13 years, and each year, randomly, our phone lines are overwhelmed by static. Happens every year. Every year a technician comes out and says that the box on the curb is rotted out and needs to be replaced. To "fix" our problem, he moves our line to a "better" switch. A year later, static, box is rotted, move the connection, a year later. We've run up and down that box, along with our neighbor, who also complains every year. Apparently putting a new box out there eludes the repair people.
Two weeks ago, our static was back. I set up a repair appointment conveniently two weeks in the future. Hey, who needs phones! This time when we pick up the phone at random times, we're serenaded by either really loud static, a high pitched, ear piercing shrieking noise, or silence. Wow, that's much more interesting than the past 12 years.
What luck, we have call forwarding. We can forward all of the calls coming into our home to our cell phone and not miss any of those important telemarketers or politicians! Well, the only problem with that is you HAVE to forward the calls FROM your home phone. Tell me exactly how I can do that with static, ear piercing shrieking noise, or dead phone?
I call the phone company and get a very helpful person who says that they can forward my phone, no problem. Ok, that's a scary thought that they have remote control over my phone that I don't have, and can willy nilly forward my phone wherever they want if the mood strikes them. Fine, I give the person my cell phone number and she dutifully reports that my line is forwarded.
A week later I hadn't received any calls forwarded from my house. This is very odd since every stinking night we usually get 1 or 60 telemarketer calls, so out of curiosity, I call our home number, expecting my cell phone to ring. Oh no... someone actually answers the phone and says "Fox Mitsubishi". Um. I'm a bit stunned. For a moment I actually forgot who I called. "Excuse me?" "Fox Mitsubishi, how may I direct your call?" I wanted to say "BACK TO MY HOUSE", but I just mumbled something about a wrong number and hung up.
I call Verizon and explain to the repair person that somehow my personal calls were now being directed to a car dealership. She transfers me to the person that has ultimate power to transfer my personal calls to any random business in the State of Maryland. This person went through my record and apologized for the fact that my phone didn't work and promised to get a repair person out there on the 8th before noon (and hell will freeze over if that happens, so don't bother getting all bundled up on the 8th), and I explain that I'm fine with waiting 2 weeks with a messed up phone to get that fixed, the issue was that my private calls were getting forwarded to Fox Mitsubishi.
She sputtered, I could hear clicking in the background as she typed secret commands on the ultra mega we know everything and can do what we want to your phones but you can't computer. She asked for my cell phone number and then said "oooh, the person that forwarded it put in 277, not 227, I'll fix that". More clicking. Then, ever diligent, she told me that she would call my home number and make sure it went to my cell.
She put me on hold, and seconds later, sure enough, my cell phone rang... and of course I answered it with "Fox Mitsubishi". Silence on the other end. After a painfully long silence I finally said "just kidding, its me". I thought she was going to fall out of her command chair laughing.
I still haven't gotten a phone call forwarded to my cell. Perhaps after two weeks of being forwarded to Fox Mitsubishi, the telemarketers have put us on their "DON'T EVER CALL THEM AGAIN!" list... either that or after laughing hysterically at my little joke, the phone person forwarded my home phone to some Dominatrix shop.
No comments:
Post a Comment