The Autodialer
By Ben (2000/07/13)I had quite the odd experience recently. I was sitting here in the pAved earth world headquarters executive offices, when the phone rang--this was not the odd experience of course, and it would be very much appreciated if you would keep such obvious evidence of your intellectual poverty to yourself. After picking it up, to my great astonishment, I heard the following message read in a man's voice: "For a very important announcement, please call 1-800... Thank you." I just stood silently holding the phone for a moment in awe. I think it would be very interesting to know how many calls he got to that 1-800 number, especially since the message was all of 4 seconds long. Someone would have had to already be holding a pen and paper, just waiting for a message from above to come in the form of a man with an autodialer calling them with a phone number to jot down. Who knows what information I could have been in possession of at this very moment, maybe a new recipe for sunflower seeds, or an invitation to join a new super-cool cult, or maybe the complete genetic make-up of the common housefly--the possibilities are mind-boggling. I would have called it, and been able to further progress this one man's no doubt earthshaking agenda--but, alas, I failed to be ready with a pen and paper at the time of my destiny. Please call back, Mr. Autodialer, and I assure you, I will be ready...next time.