I have decided that, of all the war-mongering entities out there (China, the radical religious right, the World Wrestling Federation, Pamela and Tommy Lee, Don King, the Backstreet Boys, etc.), the phone company is the worst. That's right. The phone company is trying to start an all-out telephoning Armageddon.
You know, phones used to be simple, peaceful objects. They rang, you picked the receiver up, and you either 1) spoke with the person on the other end, or 2) hung up. That was it. Very nice and simple.
Then, the phone company -- in an effort to milk the average phone customer out of an extra dollar or two or 26 every month -- added on "custom calling services." And these services were generally nice, helpful, non-confrontational extras that one could purchase if one chose to do so. Call waiting. Call forwarding. Three-way calling.
And the phoning public was at peace.
That is, until the phone company introduced caller ID. This was the start of WAR.
Caller ID seems like a nice, simple thing at first. Someone calls, and his/her number comes up on a little screen. That way, you're saved the extra step of picking up the phone and saying hello to someone before deciding whether or not to hang up. It was a great way to avoid phone calls from unwanted entities, such as exes, telemarketers, Don King, the Backstreet Boys, etc. Nice and simple.
Then, taking a book from late-30s Germany, the phone company in essence invaded Poland by introducing caller ID blocking -- a service that keeps the purchaser's number from coming up on caller ID. This was the first shot fired, and the poor schmoes with caller ID were the victims of the attack. After all, the whole point behind this service is to foil the people who had spent their hard-earned funds on caller ID, pure and simple.
The phone company therefore came out with something to appease the caller ID folks, who rightfully felt screwed by caller ID blocking. The phone folks introduced blocked call rejection. That's right: This service allows those with caller ID to block all calls that come in from those who have purchased caller ID blocking.
Is this messed up or what?
This is just one example of the war that the phone company is encouraging between its customers. Call return allows people to, by pressing a mere few buttons, to automatically ring back the last person who called. Well, what if the last person who called doesn't want to be called back?
There is also something called repeat dialing. This service goes like this: You call someone. The line is busy. The phone will LET YOU KNOW when the line is no longer busy and call the person for you. Well, OK, what if the line was busy for a reason? What if you KNOW some dork, like a member of the religious right, is going to be calling at a certain time, so you take your phone off the hook? Well, when you hang up, the dork in question will be alerted by the phone that it is back on the hook, meaning said dork will be able to CALL YOU THEN.
And you may have noticed that this service is being pushed, big-time, by the folks at Nevada Bell. Whenever you call someone whose line is busy, the voice of woman who sounds something like a pissed-off dominatrix comes on and says: "This line is BIZ-ZEE. For 75 cents, repeat dialing will let you know when the line is free."
Or something like that; I wasn't taking notes the last time I dialed the phone and got a busy signal. I meant to; it's just that, well, the dominatrix chick's voice kind of scared me. Maybe the hostess from "Weakest Link" needed some extra work or something.
All I know is that I have call waiting, voice mail, caller ID, call waiting caller ID and various other phone-related extras that I pay a pretty penny for each month. After all, you need as many weapons as possible at your disposal for this phone war Armageddon. I mean, you don't want to lose a war where a dominatrix could come over and pry 75 cents away from you? Do you?
Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who is going to ask for a raise from the Tribune so he can afford to pay his monthly telephone bill. Jimmy's column appears here Tuesdays, and he can be reached via e-mail at jiboegle@stanfordalumni.org.