We've all heard stories of technology gone awry.
It makes us wonder sometimes who actually has control....us or the machines.
Writer Heather Armitage doesn't wonder anymore.
She knows.
One day after work I arrived home to discover an unusual message on my answering-machine.
In it I heard car horns, birds chirping and garbled voices that sound like people talking into pillows.
The voices were muffled yet so familiar.
I could almost make out the words.
After replaying the message several times, I finally deciphered the sentence “My phone turns on by itself.â€
The voice on the answering machine sounded so familiar because it was my voice.
My cell phone called my home number while I was complaining to a friend about…. my cell phone.
It had my answering machine record the conversation.
It was letting me know it had heard me.
This message is not the first unsettling encounter I have experienced with my cell phone.
I try to keep my phone turned off at all times.
But it somehow turns on by itself.
It trills during movies.
It buzzes on planes during the please-turn-off-your-cell-phones speech.
It rings at restaurants, even minutes after I make sure it is turned off.
There is never anyone on the other end.
Only silence.
I tell myself the jostling in my purse causes the phone to engage.
But maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe it's showing me who has control.
I had started leaving the cell phone at home.
But then I realized that sort of defeats the purpose of owning one.
So as in many dysfunctional relationships, I decided to give my cell phone another chance, though it took one of those stranded-car-on-a-stormy-night type emergency.
But after listening to the cryptic message on my answering machine, it was clear my cell phone didn’t appreciate this renewed relationship.
My friend rang me later that evening.
She told me that my cell phone also called her house during our lunch date.
It had conveniently dialed her phone number when we started discussing her marital problems.
Her husband heard incriminating fragments of our recorded conversation when he listened to their messages.
Frantic, I scanned my memory for other topics we discussed over lunch. Did the phone ring the president when I voiced my half-formed though passionate opinion about foreign policy?
Did it call a mutual friend when we discussed her fascination with unstable men?
Will my phone alienate all of my friends and relations until there is no one left to call?
I am price checking new phones and trying not to gossip.
At least not when my phone can hear.
