Friends in odd places

[muckefuck]

Have you ever gotten a collect call from prison?

Where I live, it's a little different from a regular collect call. There's a recorded voice saying "An inmate from Cook County Correctional Facility is trying to call this number." You then have the options of accepting, refusing, blocking the call, or setting up an account with the firm that handles the requests so they can call you normally. monshu and I have both gotten a few (presumably misdials) from time to time. There were several on my answering machine before I left for NYC last Thursday.

I called to check messages from monshu's a while back and found a startling number. "You must be really popular," he said. "Yeah," I replied, "unless fifteen of them are from that guy in prison who was trying to call last week." Ha. Ha ha. Ha.

Out of twenty, nineteen were. The only "real" message was from bunj about the new opera season. (Bunj! You have Nuphy's phone number now! If you want to know anything about subscription, call him! He takes care of it all and I just hand him a check.) Sixteen were as described above--everything from the first two words of the canned message to the entire thing. Three more were nearly unitelligible, but sounded like attempts to contact someone in the Ebonics language.

The only reason there aren't more recordings is that my tape has been filled up. When did this happen? There are no timestamps, so I can't say; it could've been as early as Friday. I may not always been the brightest bulb in the array, but I generally figure after, oh, about a dozen or so attempts that I have the wrong number. Especially when there's an outgoing message from someone who sounds like no one I know. But then, it's not exactly our best and brightest filling our penitentiary system, is it?

(monshu said of the caller, "I hope it's not bunj. Wouldn't you feel bad!")

Comments

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

I doubt that the inmate can hear your outgoing message; I think they're only put through once the collect call has been accepted.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

At least one of the calls was operator-assisted. You can hear the prisoner's voice faintly in the background as the operator tells her he's just getting an answering machine. The voice seems to match that of another nigh-unintelligible message that ends with a plea to call someone, so it seems possible that she's heard the outgoing message at least once.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Wow. And I thought that whole thing about how prison makes you gay was a MYTH!

[kcatalyst.livejournal.com]

The pre-recorded message doesn't tell you who was trying to call? Doesn't that seem. . . Counterproductive? Or is the idea that you simply decide whether you know anyone in prison or not, and then the next up is to find out who the hell it is?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I assume. Not having ever accepted a collect call from prison, I couldn't say for sure. I'm tempted too, however, if only to chew this mouth-breather out for her unintentional harrassment.

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

Hey, I've gotten a couple of calls from prison over the years! I thought they were just random-dialing or something, trying to make new friends. A bit like being cat-called long distance, but without the flavor since you're only talking to the operator.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

That was my impression of the occasional one, too. But in retrospect I'm inclined to see them as misdials, given that the only plausible explanation in this case is that she doesn't know she has the wrong number and must think the dialee is trying to avoid her.