The joy of cordless phones

This is really more of a "people listening" story than a "people watching" story, but I think it's worth telling, so here it is. It has been nearly three years now since I've regularly used a cordless telephone, or any landline for that matter (with the exception of phones at work for business). Aside from the phone numbers assigned to my dorm room in college, I have never had my own "home phone number." I've had the same cell phone number for years now. While it has a Utah area code, I've actually never lived in Utah for anything longer than a summer between college semesters while owning the phone. And now for over two years, I've been living in San Francico - definitely not Utah.

After several people told me that I needed to get a new phone number, I finally caved. I didn't want to give up my Utah number - after all, I've given people that number for the past 4 or 5 years. So... I found a solution. I signed up for a high tech home phone service. Now I have a home phone with a 415 area code (San Francisco). When someone calls my home phone, though, more than just my home phone rings - my cell phone will ring as well! This means that I now have TWO cell phone numbers - the normal 801 Utah number and my new 415 number. Now people can reach me anywhere in the country with a local call from two different geographic locations.

Well, when I got the home phone line, I hooked up a new cordless telephone to the line. This evening as I was on a phone call, I started to get a little bit of static. At first I thought it was just because I was in the kitchen and the base station is in my bedroom. But then I started hearing other, non-static noises. It was clear that I was somehow picking up on someone else's phone conversation. At first I couldn't make out anything more than a man's voice. I couldn't distinguish words because there was still significant static. Going about some other business, I stepped into the dining room and almost instantly the call I was on went silent and this "interfering" call came into crystal clear, virtual surround sound.

The first thing that I noticed was that there were two parties, a man and a woman. But let me say that only one of the two - the man - was actually speaking any words. Most of the words he was saying are probably best not repeated here, and what I heard from the woman can't actually even be typed. * moan, groan * just doesn't have the same effect as if I were to offer a live impression. This was definitely an X-Rated conversation. Some might call this phone sex... and there it was, right on my phone, while I was talking to my mom. That's just great. Welcome to 415!