Wednesday, December 06, 2006

When the Broken is Nobody's Fault But Yours

There was about a 45 minute block of time today wherein I was convinced that the Superior Court had lost its telephone service. I would have bet anyone around me this was true. I spent that 45 minutes attempting to make successful calls to that court, only to get a recording every time that said "I'm sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and try again."

I tried every department telephone number I could find on the internet. There are at least 50 of them. NONE of them worked.

I reasoned "Hm. I'm new. Chances are I'm not dialing the phone correctly. I'll try calling a number I know is working and see if I get through." I tried my home, and I got the answering machine. OK, then I can't be doing anything wrong, right?

So in flustration, I called the associate attorney that assigned this to me. I said "Yeah. You aren't going to believe this when I tell you - and I'd like you to try the same numbers I did - but I can't get one single number to the Superior Court to work correctly. They are broken. BROKEN I TELL YOU. I get an "unable to connect" message every time. And I tried local numbers I know, and got through on those so I have to be dialing correctly."

He good naturedly conference called me in on his attempt to get through to our court department - AND GOT THROUGH ON THE VERY FIRST TRY. When the clerk picked up, I honestly thought it was a joke. After the call was completed, I asked him to come up to my phone so I could try again. Because I kept getting the same result.

While he watched, I started to dial the number. And then the laughter. THE LAUGHTER began. "The problem is you aren't daling 1 - xxx - xxx-xxxx. Because you do know we are in the yyy area code??....which means xxx numbers need a 1 before you dial...."

Turns out that I was dialing as if I was in the area code FOR MY OLD JOB (xxx), not the new area code (yyy) I'm dialing from now. Not the area code I've typed onto at least 300 some documents in the last month.

I laughed. He laughed. I'll bet you a gillion dollars I'll do it again. Wish I had that 45 minutes back - but whatcha gonna do.

Besides, I've got a much more disturbing worry to worry about. The air is so dry lately that the inside of my nose now feels as if I've coke whore sniffed an entire pan of baklava up into there. Like I'm storing for the winter or something. I can't breathe without making whistle noises. And every once in a while I get the sensation that I've got a dangler. But nothing is ever there. At least not when I look. And trust me, blowing my nose only makes all of this much worse.

If I can't even dial a telephone correctly, how am I supposed to trust myself to keep my nose dangle free?

8 comments:

Spin_Doc1 said...

Wow, the new blog version just lost my comment. As I was typing... Plants in the bedroom while you sleep add moisture to the air.

AndyT13 said...

As usual I'm speechless in awe of your fabulous wonderfulness. It's not so unusual to forget something trivial like an area code. The fact that you typed the wrong one into about a gajillion documents is pretty funny though! :-)
Love ya Zoomie!

PS check out today's post!

Tai said...

Gracious. I do not know what to say.
Good luck on the dialing!

Barry said...

I loved the way you described your nose... always a fun read zoooom

i used to be me said...

This is the first place we've ever lived where you have to dial the area code with the phone number. It's taken a while to get used to and I still slip up and forget it.

Polyman3 said...

I bet your snoring
and making odd little zooomy grunts
all night long.

...and hey, so you have a little
attention deficit when it comes to
modern instruments, like the phone
everyone is entitled to a little
mental lapse...

Theresa said...

Do you have a "booger-check buddy"? You know, someone nearby who you can glance over at and flare you nostrils at with an inquisitive look? If you don't, you obviously need one. It's sort of a reciprical relationship. They do you, and you do them. Trust me, it's a good thing.

Aisha T. said...

*laugh* Luckily, in NYC, we HAVE to dial 1(xxx)-xxx-xxxx for ANY call that we make. yes, even local. Drives the hotel guests absolute bonkers. I'm sure there were not any danglers there--you're fine :-)