Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Phantoms

My son phoned last night from New York, right near the end of The Mentalist, the show on CBS with Simon Baker. (My secret vice.) I wouldn't have answered anyone else's call.

The cell phone reception was terrible. Lots of banging and swishing and what sounded like his voice in the background, but garbled. I thought the noise was on my end, so I climbed part way up to the attic office, thinking it might clear if I got higher up. I kept saying: “Will, I cannot understand a word you’re saying…”

Finally after about three minutes of this, while I imagined that he was being mugged on a city sidewalk, the call went dead. By then, I was hyperventilating.

I phoned him back—went to voicemail. I phoned his office—went to voicemail. No way I’m going to phone his wife and panic her over this. So I texted him. Then I sent an MSM, whatever the heck that is. And finally I emailed him. The gist was the same in all of these: did u just call me? please let me know u r ok. (I hate text messages.)

About five minutes later I received this response:

“Don't think so. Maybe phantom dial while I was ordering pizza? Pocket dials can be pretty amusing.”

Amusing. Oh, yes. Absolutely.

Sigh.

Oh, by the way, I'm joining Deb in December Views.

My image for today is an abandoned farmhouse near Round Top:

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

well, the retelling was amusing, if the actual event was not! lovely image...

Anonymous said...

Wow, that is an abandoned house? I love it! My husband recently made a phantom call at 4:30 am. It was quite funny.

aliceinparis said...

Hi there, Thanks for popping by:) You asked about resolution etc? I upload at top resolution to flickr and then use the pictures from there to upload to my blog. I have to resize them a bit smaller to get them to fit on the page.
That is funny about the phantom dial. I've had calls like that, all muffled and strange:)
Cheers, Shelagh

Woman in a Window said...

Amusing. What's up with today's kids? But then I assume from your comment on age and me being a baby at 38 that your son is not a child. But still a kid?

And why is that farmhouse abandoned? Gorgeous. Nice shot too.

(And I was by your other blog first and I wonder how that novel went.)

Babette Fraser Hale said...

Thanks to all for commenting.

Aliceinparis, I just joined flickr. Very simple, isn't it?

Window woman, my baby is four years younger than you are! And the novel I mentioned a couple of posts ago is the same one mentioned on Bookcrackers. One of the earlier incarnations...