Confessions of an Eavesdropper

While modern technology has ostensibly made our lives easier, it has also created many opportunities to ruin our lives. With just one click.

Oh sure, it's funny when it happens to somebody else.

My friend, Ingrid (not her real name), was driving around in her car when she called.

"Hello?" I said.

I knew it was Ingrid (still not her real name) because of Caller ID, but she didn't say anything. At first.

I could hear that airy windy sound when someone is clearly in their vehicle with the windows rolled down.

"Hello?" I said again.

"Oh, nice." she said.

Huh?

"Now why do you have to piss me off like that? No. No. Excuse me, sir, I was there first."

Was she talking to someone in her car?

No. I was in the midst of finding out that my friend Ingrid talks to herself. A lot.

"Come onnnn! That's right, just pull out in front of me. It's not like my time is more important than yours. Clearly you are in much more of a hurry than I am."

Now, when you come to the realization that your friend's phone has mistakenly dialed your number, shouldn't you hang up? I mean, you could be wasting their monthly plan's precious minutes.

On the other hand, you could find out some seriously private personal information. What if she says something about you?

I had another friend (let's call her Hortense) who accidentally called me while talking to her husband in the car. I grabbed a diet soda out of the fridge, made some microwave popcorn and settled onto the couch with a blanket for some great juicy conversation. But after about 35 minutes, I was BORED. Plus the music on their radio sucked.

But that kind of behavior is so wrong. Are you justified in listening because they're the ones who called you in the first place? It's not like you asked them to call you and then leave you hanging.

What if you hang on for sixty minutes eavesdropping and then they get their bill and they don't remember talking to you for an hour. In fact they haven't talked to you for months. What the heck are you going to say to her if she asks you about it? Play dumb? Like you both were unaware that your phones were connected?

I can just see the innocent look on your face, too. "You don't remember calling me? Oh really? Well, I don't remember answering. Huh. Gosh, that sure is weird."

Or what if she decides she has to make a phone call and she grabs her phone and sees you've been sitting there on the line for 20 minutes? How are you going to explain THAT?

Anyway, back to my friend Ingrid, who was heard (by me) to say: "Yeah, I'd like one Filet-O-Fish sandwich and a large order of fries." And then I listened to her pull up to the first window and pay for her meal. And then I listened to her pull up to the second window to pick up her meal.

I know. I'm a bad person. I'm certain I will pay for my transgressions.

I have yet to decipher all of my new iPhone's bells and whistles. When I least expect it and I'm in full trash-talking mode, karma will bite me in the nether regions and place a call to the object of my derision. I'll be in the car with my husband talking about Mildred (not her real name) and how she married an idiot and I give it six months and what does she see in him and God knows what all else when I'm on that kind of a roll.

And because I'm a complete dunce about all those fancy schmancy cell phone applications (or, "apps", for the lingo-savvy), I will not have installed Eavesdropper 2.0, alerting me with a ringtone snippet from Marvin Gaye's Heard It Through The Grapevine, that someone is listening to my conversation. Mildred will send me a Twitterrific direct message with a heinous virus rendering me mute and sickening everyone in the car with me. It won't be pretty, I can tell you that.

Since necessity is the mother of invention, what I really need is a voice-activated application that automatically bleeps out gossip-mongering if my phone makes that dreaded unauthorized call in the first place. Then we'd all live happily ever after.

Goat Thing of The Day

I would like to thank Leslie from Stethescopes and Stillettos for surprising me with this the other day: