No Land Line

This morning I was heading out my back door so I could take the trash out on my way to work. As I was locking my door I can hear the voice of an old woman saying, in a slightly pained voice “hello? hello? is anyone there…hello?”

I see her, she is standing at the edge of her porch in a pink house coat gripping the railing with both hands, her head and shoulders are just above the rail.

This is also the same woman I occasionally see peering out her blinds at those of us who live across from her and best of all the same woman who many early mornings will go to the edge of her porch and drop (from the 2nd floor) her bag of garbage down to the gang-way. I guess she has a deal with the building guy because someone always seems to pick it up and take it to the trash.

I of course am hoping I can avoid whatever drama is about to happen. But alas I cannot as she sees me on the landing. She then asks “do you have a phone”, I replied “I do, but I am on my way to work, maybe one of your neighbors has one you can use”

One note here, she is actually not in my building, she is in the building that is next to mine and their back porches are across from my back porch.

Then she starts saying again “but is anyone out there? Because I don’t have a phone…I have electricity”. I have no idea what she is talking about when she speaks of “anyone” being “out there” but I start to realize she means her phone is out, and just not working.

So I go back into my place and sure enough my phone is dead and the display says “no line”.

I go back outside and tell her my phone is dead as well so it must be the block because I don’t live in her building. She doesn’t seem to understand and starts asking again if I can “get the people to come talk to her” or she asks if I can find her landlord. I explain again that I don’t live in her building and don’t know her landlord and as I am now standing in the alley trying to get away I can clearly see there is no one in the alley.

She just can’t believe that there isn’t a bunch of people and a truck in our alley; she is convinced that the phone being out must mean that there are people working on it in the alley. I again state that there is not a single person out there (even up and down the block as she instructs me to look) and that she should see if a neighbor has a cell phone to report the problem but I have to go to work now.

It is nearly 9am and I am now very late.

On my way to the train I call AT&T on my cell and figure I will report it while I walk. The message tells me there is a “high volume of calls” and my wait could be “more than 10 minutes”. I was on hold for about 5 before I gave up and hung up.

I called when I got to work and no surprise there are no reports of an outage in my area. So they “ping” my line and after several minutes say there must be a problem with the outside line and they will send people out.

As of now when I call my number it goes right to voicemail. Mostly my concern is how I will live with out a network connection tonight. It will be like it is 1874 and I will have to needlepoint or play the piano forte.