#218 Ghost Message

The other day I got a message from a ghost. Or at least it might as well have been. It was one of those messages you get on your phone from time to time. Whoever it is, is obviously leaving a message for someone, but it doesn’t appear to be you or any of your family members. The message-leaver definitely thinks he has the right number. And so he goes blithely on, supplying endless details about an event or thing, and since the message isn’t really to you, you have no idea what he’s talking about. One time I got a call from what appeared to be a frantic delivery guy saying he was really sorry but his truck broke down and he wouldn’t be able to make it until tomorrow. Tomorrow came and he never showed. I wonder if the person he actually intended the message for waited around all night for him to show. Postponed another appointment perhaps, or put off having dinner because he expected the delivery any moment. The message-leaver thought he had done his duty and would swear on a stack of bibles, King James, New Modern, and Concordance, that he did.
Sometimes the messages are amazingly personal. One guy left a series of messages on my phone about his unrequited love for someone. I had to laugh. Whoever the gal he was pining after was sure sneaky when she gave him the wrong number to call. My wife didn’t think it was that funny.
Now suppose the message leaver did realize he’d left the message at the wrong number. How would he call back and apologize? He doesn’t know what the wrong number was he dialed, if it was just a trip of the digit or one of those momentary dyslexic things like I from suffer.
There ought to be some sort of phone tree technology that lets you undue what you just did before you did it permanently. Record your message, review your message, and most importantly, review the number you’re sending the message to, before you press that finalization key. “If you are satisfied with your message, press the pound key. Please review the number and if satisfied this is whom you intend to send it to, press the star key. To expedite this message, press one. To hold this message for possible cancel and retrieval, press two. If you are absolutely, positively, certain that this is the message you want to send and the person you want to send it to and have no regrets whatsoever about the contents of this message and the possible ramifications for generations of any message left in anger, spite, or rancor, press three.”
Great idea. This’ll take the people who go back three times and check to see if their door is locked off the street forever.
America, ya gotta love it.