Do you ever get unwanted phone calls? Like a heavy breather?
Or that guy from the Police Activities League who wants to fund a baseball team for a bunch of skinny kids? “Your life savings, that’s all we need.”
Or a survey-taker. “It’s only ninety-nine questions. It won’t take long.”
Yeah. I don’t get those people.
I get robo calls from a fax machine.
Have you ever tried reasoning with a fax machine? You can’t. I’ve tried.
The phone rings.
I answer.
“Hello?”
“Beeeeeeeep…….beeeeeeeep……beeeeeeeep…..”
Fax machine. I hang up.
The phone rings.
“Hello?”
“Beeeeeeeeep……beeeeeeeep…….”
Another fax machine! What are the odds? I hang up.
It rings again. I pick up.
“Beeeeeeeeep……beeeeeeeep……”
Wait a minute, this is the same fax machine!
“STOP CALLING ME!”
“Beeeeeeep….”
“I’M NOT A FAX MACHINE! I’M A HUMAN BEING!”
“Beeeeeeeep….”
I slam the receiver down.
The phone rings.
I disconnect it.
In the morning, I reconnect it.
The phone rings.
“Hello?”
“Beeeeeeeep…”
After three weeks of this, I call the phone company and talk to a woman in technical services.
She wants to know my name. My phone number. My mother’s maiden name. The name of my first pet. The name of the street I lived on when I was five. The name of the thirty-fifth president of the United States. The name of the thirty-fifth president’s mother-in-law, her first pet, and the name of the street she lived on. By the time I’ve forgotten why I called, she says, “How can I help you?”
“Uhh….Hold on, it’s coming to me. Oh. I’m being harassed by a fax machine!”
Pause.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Diane. Let me see if I can help. Do you have caller ID?” she says. “Let me check. No, you don’t. For an extra fee you could get caller ID.”
“Wouldn’t I need one of those phones that displays who’s calling?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t have one.”
“You could buy one.”
I sigh. “Can’t you just trace the call?” I say.
“No, I’m sorry. That department is gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yes.”
“The whole department?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Can the police trace the call?” I say.
“Oh, no. If they need something traced, they call us.”
“You.”
“Yes.”
“But that department is gone.”
“Yes. Well. We can trace a call if it’s an emergency.”
“This is an emergency. I’m being harassed by a fax machine. A fax machine. It’s driving me crazy. It calls over and over again–used to be every day– now it’s every Thursday night. Every Thursday night. I come home, I have messages from it on the answering machine, the phone is ringing when I walk through the door, and it’s the fax machine. This. This right here, is an emergency!”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she says, “If you had caller ID, then for an additional fee, you could block the number. But that only works if the number is local.”
I take a huge breath. “So you’re telling me I need to buy a new phone, and extra services which might not even work, all because a fax machine is harassing me.”
“You could try dialing star-six-nine. But that won’t work unless you have caller ID.”
“Thank you,” I say. “Thank you very much. I’M HANGING UP NOW.”
I turn on my laptop. I’ll figure this out myself. I google “calls from fax machines.” I find forums where others are complaining about the same problem. The same problem! All over the world, fax machines are calling people. They’re on a mission to drive us all insane! I’m ready to up my medication when I see this post:
“Hook up a fax machine to the phone to see where the call is coming from.”
Brilliant! That’s what I’ll do!
And then I remember.
I don’t have a fax machine.
I could buy a fax machine. But that would cost, like, ninety dollars. Or I could buy a phone that displays caller ID and pay the extra fees to the phone company, but that would cost, like, ninety dollars. Either way, I’m out ninety dollars.
All because I’M BEING HARASSED BY A STUPID FAX MACHINE!
But wait.
Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong. Maybe I need to think outside the box.
Maybe this fax machine is looking for its mate.
It’s like that owl in the back yard that goes hoo-hoo-hoo all night, all by its lonesome. It’s waiting for a response from a lady owl. It breaks my heart! So I drag myself out of bed and stand on the lawn and make owl noises back, and we go on like that for a good long while, and it seems a tiny bit thrilled that I’m answering–although that could be my imagination. But after awhile, it stops hoo-hoo-hooing, and I go back to bed.
Maybe I need to talk to this fax machine in its own language!
So. On Thursday night, I come home from work and look for messages.
I check the dial tone. All is in working order.
I clean the bathroom, make dinner, watch a DVD, go to bed. I turn out the light and lie in the dark, waiting.
Around 3:00 in the morning, I’m forced to admit: I’ve been stood up.
It’s not me, it’s the fax machine, I tell myself.
Still, it could have left a message.
