S.O.S.

The other night I was settling down to read a book before bed.  For me, that means a digital book on my phone.  

My neck and shoulders had been bothering me, so I asked my husband if I could borrow his phone clamp so that I could clamp it to the bed and have my phone closer to my face so I wouldn't put an extra crink in my neck by bending my head.

I clamped my phone in and then tried to find the best place to clamp it to the bed.  That was the part that didn't go so well.  It kept slipping off the bed frame or swinging around and almost pummeling me in the face.

Suddenly, a loud and horrific sound filled the room.  I didn't know what was going on!  Was it my husband's phone being obnoxious?  Did one of our cats turn on the tv in the living room to a search and rescue show? Was a S.W.A.T. team invading our home?  No!  It was my stupid phone wailing to high heaven.

I pulled it out of the clamp and nothing I did seemed to TURN. IT. OFF.  I kept pressing the side buttons trying to shut the phone down.  I tried telling Siri to stop.  JUST STOP.  Nope, that didn't work either.  It said "Emergency SOS" on the screen.

Both I and my husband were scrambling to shut it down before it dialed 911.  That didn't work either.  It finally got quiet and I pressed the side button some more.  Unfortunately, it got quiet because the phone had connected to a 911 operator and I had just hung up on them!

My phone rang then and my husband told me to answer since it was probably 911 calling back.  Sure enough, that's who it was.  I apologized profusely and the operator was just glad that everyone was ok.

Shortly after I hung up, the phone rang again from a number I didn't know.  I didn't want to answer it, so I handed my phone to my husband.  He answered it and found that it was another 911 operator.  Apparently, I'd hung up on more than one.  He apologized and said his wife was "playing with her phone."  Excuse me?  I was NOT playing with my phone.  Grumble.  Grumble.  

Shortly after he hung up with the second 911 operator, my phone rang again!  He answered and this time it was his dad, who had been notified through text that I was having an SOS Emergency.  

The only emergency I was having was trying to stop all this emergency dialing!  That was the end of the phone calls and then I went in and changed my settings.  I didn't realize that the phone had a feature to call your emergency numbers when the side button was pressed rapidly 5 times.  All that fumbling around with the phone clamp must have triggered this feature.

I tossed the clamp back to my husband and assured him I would be just fine reading my book without it.  

Just like the Hotel California

Today I went into the office for work instead of working from home.  It was a very busy Friday, and I looked forward to a nice trike ride home on my new motorcycle.  

Loaded down in motorcycle gear, I pushed open the suite door and confidently pushed the down button for the elevator.  Nothing happened.  No lights lit up, no sound of the elevators moving.  

Well, that’s odd, I thought to myself.  I went over and pressed the buttons on the other side but nothing happened there either.  What in the world?

I started racking my brain for any memory of an email telling us that the elevators would be shut down after hours today, but I couldn’t come up with anything.  I tried swiping my badge to get back into the suite to get the security desk’s phone number, but it was after hours, so of course, my badge didn’t work.

Now I was starting to get a little nervous.  I was trapped!  Trapped in an entryway with no way to leave; no doors were willing to open for me.

At least I had my cell phone with me.  I flipped through emails looking for the security desk number to no avail, so I decided to call my boss to try to get it.  I got her on the line and we both tried to find it.  I was tired and cranky and flustered and started raising my voice at the absurdity of it all.  

I also started getting mad because I could hear the cleaning crew on other floors making noise.  It occurred to me that the clean crew had probably locked down all the elevators to fill them up with refuse from various suites.  I could understand shutting down an elevator, but all 6 of them??!!??  I JUST WANTED TO GO HOME!  

Well, I think the cleaning crew heard me.  Immediately after ranting that I wanted to go home, I heard some more rustling and clunking from the cleaning crew and then magically an elevator started moving again.  I pressed the button and it actually lit up this time!

By now, I had set all my gear on the floor, so when the door opened, I had to scramble to put a piece of it in front of the sensor so that I could go back and pick the rest of it up.  I tossed everything in, rushed in myself, and pressed the button to take me down to freedom.

I still had my boss on the phone and she was willing to stay on the line until I was safely out of that funhouse of horrors, but by that time I was already at the ground floor and I practically jumped out of the elevator.  At that point, I hoped that nothing else would stop me from leaving the building, so I let her go back to her Friday evening fun.

I did make a detour to the security desk and complained.  I mean, if I had wanted to visit a Hotel California wannabe, there should have at least been some dancing and drinks.