My Phone

I have a cell phone but I never get phone calls. This isn't a story about how nobody loves me because I get lots of e-mails instead. However, what has happened is I don't know how to answer the phone, I'm out of practice as it were. The phone rings, with whatever default ringtone the cell came with which I don't recognize. If I happen to be around the phone when it rings, I wonder what the hell is that noise? I look around and eventually figure out it's my phone. Which is buried in a desk or bookbag. So by the time I fish it out of course the call has gone to voice mail. Which I don't know how to use. I mean, when it was first set up all the menus were in French. Everyone knows computer phone system hell - press one for accounts, press two to check your balance. Yeah, I tried doing that in French. Once. I gave up and sent whoever left the message an e-mail asking what they wanted. I understand e-mail. My phone menu might have been switched to English now. I don't know how that happened, but I still don't know how to access it.

Anyway, I decided to do something about my failure to recognize the telephone ringing so I went into the settings and picked out the 'old fashioned telephone' sound. This one I at least have practiced with. I'm ready, just waiting for that one call I get every few weeks. One rare day I'm anticipating a phone call so I move the phone to my pocket as I'm walking home from work. I'm walking by the busy intersection and I hear this phone ringing. 'What the hell' I think to myself. 'Who has a phone ringing in the middle of nowhere?' I look around to try and find the source of the noise, eventually realizing it's my cell phone. Because it's in my pocket I manage to catch it before it goes to voice mail.

A few weeks later I'm walking around on EPFL campus, going for lunch when I hear this telephone ringing. Aha! I figure this has got to be my phone since I'm outside and no one is around. I pull it out but there's no one calling. The ringing continues and there on the outside of one of the buildings is a box with a telephone locked up inside and ringing.

So if you call me and I don't answer the phone, try again. Maybe I should make a custom ring tone. One that says "Carly, answer your damn phone, someone is calling you".