Thief in the night

In which our Hero sits accused and has no idea how to answer

I have two cell phones. One is the one that people know about, that my home and office phones forward to, the one that rings. The other is a stealth phone. I don’t use it to make phone calls, I just got it for the incredibly cheap data plan.

The advantage (or problem) with having a second cell phone is that it gives me redundancy, and that leaves me free to play with it. So when the nice folks at Samsung and TMobile decided *not* to update my phone to the then-latest operating system, I took advantage of the hardwork of the hacking community and found my own update. And then when Android version 4 was released and Samsung said it couldn’t run on my phone, but the community disagreed and voila, I’ve got the latest and greatest, running slick as cold-pressed baby oil. (I assume that stuff is like EVOO, though the irony of then rubbing it on other babies is a little disturbing)

But all of this is to excuse the tremendous confusion when my very new-to-me phone suddenly displayed a never-before-seen-by-me screen and started doing it’s little bumblebee honey-dance to tell me that there was a call coming in. And answering the phone did not improve matters.

“Hello?”

“You stole my phone,” said the girl over the noises of other people laughing.

“Mmm. No.” I’m afraid this is my barely restrained inner smartass that so horrifies Nocturne when she overhears me talking to telemarketers. I could have explained that I had had this phone and line for over a year without change or incident. But hell, I’m not justifying myself to a random accusatory caller. And anyway, my brain was busy trying to figure out if this was a cousin messing with me.

“Yeah, you took my phone.”

“No, I’m sure I didn’t,” I answered.

“Are you in my class?”

This is the point where I just about burst out laughing.

“No. I’m not in your class,” I told the girl. “I think you dialed the wrong number.”

“Oh” she said.

I didn’t hear from her again, so I assume I’ve been exonerated.