Call waiting (and waiting)

Poor Angie and Josh! I don't even know them, but for the past week we've been receiving all their phone calls. Somehow the lines got crossed so that calls to our home number go off into a black hole somewhere but anyone who dials Angie and Josh's home number gets us.

I've spoken to a number of Angie and Josh's friends and family members, sometimes several times a day, and they regard us with some suspicion, as if we are guilty of skullduggery involving the kidnapping of telephone lines. I keep telling them to call Frontier. Why not? The more, the merrier!

Calling Frontier has not worked well for me. I have been told at various times that someone would be out before 8 a.m. yesterday, by midafternoon yesterday, before 8 p.m. yesterday, before 9 a.m. this morning, and before 8:46 p.m. today. The specificity of that last promise encouraged me to hope, but alas, no one has been out to untangle the mess.

Frontier's hold music brings back memories of the "Small World" ride at Disney, with all those smiley plastic dolls singing the same perky tune over and over and over and over until you really wish you'd brought along a blowtorch. Everyone I've spoken to at has been polite and pleasant, and they've all ended the conversation with the same sentence: "Is there anything else we can do for you?" "Fix my phone" is what I tell them, but apparently they mean "anything but that."

At one point I suggested that perhaps my next call should be to the Public Utilities Commission, which got me connected to a supervisor who made yet another promise that my phone line would be functioning by the end of the day. Ten minutes after he hung up, I received a recorded message informing me that due to high demand, my service call had been rescheduled for tomorrow, and I should make sure a responsible adult is available at home between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.

But I think I'll be irresponsible and go to work. If they need me, they can call me.