Over the Wire

I finally pulled the plug on our land line.

Look, everyone in the household has his own cell phone. Other than Mom and Dad, the only people who call our home number are telemarketers and art school recruiters looking for Saleem.*

This is a momentous occasion, a step into unknown territory, but also a way to stop throwing away 50 bucks a month. As I see it, that would add up to .75 more restaurant outings per month. How can I go wrong?

Yet I hesitated. What if I were home alone and my cell phone battery was dead and there was a fire or a burglar or aliens landed or all three simultaneously? Ok, but what if one of Rocket Scientist's home science experiments went horribly wrong?

So we calculated some odds and found them to be in the range of 42,890 - 1,158,336,118 to 1. I decided I could live with those odds as long as I can get that .75 more restaurant meals/month thing.


Our calculations revealed some other interesting statistics, which helped reinforce that decision:

      * There is a 98% chance that someone will be home when the home phone rings.

      * There is a 66% chance that Someone will be Me.

      * There is a 12% chance I will be home alone.
     
      * There is a 2% chance The Cat in the Hat will drop by with Thing 1 and Thing 2.

       * There is a 99% chance that if a telemarketer calls, I am the only one who hears it.

       * There is a 0% chance that anyone other than me will listen to, clear, save messages, or pick up when the home phone rings. Not even Thing 2.


Still I hesitated. What is it about an embedded phone wire that anchors you?

It's not an easy service to cancel, either. It involves plenty of detective legwork, since after striking out online I had to ransack the place for a stupid phone book to get a phone number for the Phone Company. Also, it took Ph.D.-level archaeological research digging for mysterious user names, searching for ancient passwords, and solving difficult puzzles regarding the name of my first pet. Kind of like 'The Da Vinci Code' minus the albino monk and the breathlessness .....

I expect to find closure when I gather up all the hand-sets in the house. I think a few moments of silence and no service would be appropriate. Followed by a quick trip to a restaurant ordering only from the appetizer menu so the bill is .75 of what a regular dinner out would total.

Meanwhile, the Rocket Scientist has his eye on the no-longer-needed phone cable here. I am hoping he will use it to somehow signal the aliens to bypass our house. But if anyone is interested in some free receivers and answering machines, give us a call. Just don't dial the land line .....








* http://prgasdaska.blogspot.com/2011/09/saleem-wrong-number.html











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