New Perils Of Technology

I received a pretty unique voice mail the other day. According to the caller ID it was from a friend who likes to talk almost as much as I do, so I was not all that surprised to see that her message was more than fifteen minutes long.

As I listened to it, though, I was kind of puzzled. She did not speak, but I could hear faint sounds of shuffling silverware and stacking dishes. I could hear my friend's voice, ghostly and distant, singing in the background. After a few minutes of this I heard keys jangling, a car door slamming, and then a radio playing - with more of that weird, haunting, far-away singing.

I mean "weird" in the best possible way, Leah. Really I do.

Actually, it didn't take too long to figure out what was going on. This was simply a natural outgrowth of our modern times, a reflection of the complex interaction between humans and our own rapidly changing technological world. It was a manifestation of our society's struggle between our finest creations and our very souls.

In other words, I had been butt-dialed.

Butt-dialing happens when you sit on your cell phone and the roll of Mentos you crammed in the same pocket accidentally hits the "Send" button. The consequences of butt-dialing can be fairly unnerving. My own first experience with it involved standing in a completely silent elevator full of strangers, thinking that I was having a stroke or some sort of hallucination when I heard the faint, reedy voice of my wife shouting, "Mike! Mike!" from somewhere south of my belt.

Luckily, butt-dialed calls generally go to people you know well enough that you have them programmed into your phone's speed dial. In my case, every one of these people are fully aware that I am an idiot, and are prepared to forgive me for the call. 

I did hear about one guy a few years ago, who dropped his pants in a men's room stall in Baltimore and his Mentos managed to dial the White House. In less than an hour the Secret Service had him in custody, and they questioned him for nearly two weeks about directing "threatening noises" toward the President. Apparently Karl Rove had him turned over to the CIA, and the last anybody heard he was living in special "guest" accommodations in Bulgaria.

Well, that's what I heard.

The interesting thing is, butt-dialing was pretty much unknown until phones got portable and small enough that we actually started carrying them around in a pocket instead of a wheelbarrow. Can you recall ever sitting on a 1960s-era Princess phone and accidentally treating Lyndon B. Johnson's receptionist to the sounds of you alone in your room practicing the "Monster Mash?"

So it is a technologically treacherous world we live in today. Accidentally hit "Reply All" to an email, and everybody on Irving's Friends list learns that you think Irving's friends are all a bunch of creeps and phonies. Defy the instructions of your car's GPS and you get yelled at; "Turn around - NOW!"

Get a little bit curious about how whales breathe, innocently start typing "blow holes" into a Google search screen and... well you can imagine.

And this brings us around to the real point I think has to be made here: we would all be a lot better off if we could just bring a few more wheelbarrows back into our lives.

Copyright © 2009, Michael Ball

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