Marc Allan is a good friend. In fact, until recently, we talked about four times a day. True, I was the one who always called him, but I don’t really keep track of stuff like that. However, I think now the relationship may be over. I have deleted him from my contact list. Let me explain:
Not sure why, but Marc was the recipient of every butt-dial call I made. It got to the point that when Marc answered the phone, he’d say: “Is this an intentional call? Do you have something to actually say to me?” After bothering him so many times, I prepared for this embarrassing situation if it happened again, so I would have something to say.
“Hi, Dick. What’s up?”
“Oh, hi. Marc? I called to, er…say that, um, I wondered if…is that Fred the Mastodon exhibit still on display? I’ve been thinking about coming to see it.”
Marc, who is the director of communication at the Indiana State Museum, knew I had no interest in mastodons. But he did ask me to mention in this column the 97th annual Hoosier Salon, featuring some of the best artists in Indiana—to pay him back for pestering him four times a day AND for allowing me to use his real name in this story.
I asked some of my techie friends how I could avoid making these unintentional calls. One suggested that Marc’s last name begins with an A, and the phone automatically calls the first name on my contact list when I sit on the device. That’s when I deleted his contact info. About an hour later, the phone rang.
“Dick, it’s Ashley at Nationwide Insurance. Are you okay?”
“Yes, why do you ask?”
“You called me three times this morning but didn’t speak. Have you been in an accident?”
“Kind of. I rear-sended Marc Allan several times yesterday.”
Ashley wanted to know why I was now calling her. I explained that she was next on my contact list alphabetically and that unless I spent the rest of my life standing up, she could possibly be hearing from me several times a day. She requested that I delete her from my contacts, as well.
“Wait, what will I do if I really need to call you?” I asked.
“How about changing my name to Zelda?”
I’ve never had a problem like this with anyone else. Some people among my inner circle, like Berl, my college newspaper editor, never got a butt-dial call from me. Barry, my nephew in California, never got a butt-dial call from me. Bob, probably my best friend: not a single unintended call from me. I wonder if these people feel slighted. After all, a butt-dial call shows you are at the top of my list of friends and family (alphabetically, at least). I decided to sit down and think about this. But just when I got comfortable, I heard my phone start dialing. This was very exciting. I had no idea who I had accidentally called.
But I was pretty sure their name would start with the letter B.
