Free Calls

[asakiyume]

On Thursday I picked up Wakanomori from the airport--he's back from the UK. We stopped around 7 pm at a rest stop on I-90, and as I was coming out of the bathrooms, I noticed a Verizon payphone, and on it, this remarkable sticker.



It starts with a blessing and a prayer, then turns to special needs: a job, help with Social Security and EBT (for people overseas, this is government food assistance), and then on to the lesser financial deities.

After snapping the photo, I wandered back to the table where we were eating, but my curiosity got the better of me. What happens if I press *10? What happens if I press *12? Or any of the others. So I went back. I picked up the receiver, but there was nothing.

It said on the machine that it was 50 cents for a local call, so I put in two quarters, but they fell right through and came out the coin return. I felt more than disappointed; I felt bereft. A scam and a prayer--but then the phone goes and doesn't even work. When I wrote about it on Twitter, a friend said, "This feels like a metaphor for ... something," and it really does. There's some kind of archaeology of desperation and last-ditch hopes there.

Comments

[sartorias]

As soon as I saw the list of banks I thought scam, but wow, a scam that doesn't work?

[asakiyume]

Maybe it would work if the phone worked. But the phone doesn't! So the scam is obsolete... and yet it keeps on trying to lure people in, unaware of its own futility.

[mallorys_camera]

That's wild.

Maybe the phone only works between the last second before midnight and the first second after midnight. Or when ther moon is full. Or when a volcano is about to erupt.

[asakiyume]

Pretty sure a volcano WAS about to erupt, given the tsunami and all that happened last night. But maybe one of the other two.

[cmcmck]

Glad the trip went okay and hope his folks were okay!

[asakiyume]

He has just one parent living now, his mother, and she's got several health issues, but she's stable. The visit was a lot of hard work, but seems to have been very rewarding for everyone, so that's good. He hasn't seen people in over two years.

[amaebi]

Thanks for the wider narrative than you could give on Twitter.

I think that there parable is false. :D

ET: Good art, though.

[asakiyume]

I want to ask "What parable?" but I want you to understand that I'm asking in fuzzy-headed ignorance, not offense. In other words, not bristling at a perceived accusation but just unsure what's what in what you're saying. For instance, if you're saying "I think that in actual fact, that sticker wasn't intended for any good purpose," I would agree. But is that what you're saying?

[amaebi]

Oh, just what you meant by "metaphor," I think.

Though the sticker also looks way fishie to me.

[asakiyume]

Ah, okay--thanks!

[amaebi]

But OTOH I now think it was a very true parable in displaying all those calls as part of one suspect class, as well as in the phone being down.

[asakiyume]

Yes! And this must be part of the power of a parable: that it can seem innocuous--"no message here; nothing to see" but be declaring itself loudly at the same time.

[wayfaringwordhack]

Why? Why did the sticker-maker/designer do it? Why have such a thing printed and put there? The whys will drive me mad. :P

[asakiyume]

I *think* it was probably a type of scam. Probably if you pressed any of the numbers other than the first, you were enticed to give out personal information (e.g., social security number or bank account number) that the person on the other end could use for their own profit. What it couldn't do--unlike stuff involving your cellphone--is charge you a whole lot of money right then and there: since it was a pay phone, you'd have to be keeping on putting in coins, so you couldn't be racking up a big bill without being aware of it. So they'd have to depend on getting you to call those numbers and then giving out information.

... I think! There are emergency aid numbers--often 211 (at least, in this area it's 211) that you can dial, and you reach operators who will direct you to social services that can help you. I don't think this could be [or have been, back when the phone worked] that, though.

[wayfaringwordhack]

Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for typing that out. I am trying to come back from one of my bad migraines and my faculties are far from being sharp. :P

[asakiyume]

No worries! It's pretty amazing that people will go to this much trouble to try to ensnare people!

[wayfaringwordhack]

Very sad that they are willing to do it. I have never been the brightest bead in the bucket, I am more than happy to share, when it comes to understanding how to cheat systems and people to get more money. I will always remember how much time it took me to understand the scam some fellow servers got fired for running at a restaurant chain I used to work for. I just couldn't get my head around it, and I wasn't sick then. :P

[asakiyume]

What was their scam?

[wayfaringwordhack]

so, they would have table 1 who would order a coke and a tea along with their meal. The server would print the ticket, collect the money, but before cashing out the ticket, s/he would move the tea and coke to a new ticket, say table 2. The server would then pocket the money from the two beverages. If the new table ordered the same thing, they would be charged for them just like table 1 (and the servers would collect the money again) or the server would delete the drinks or move them to yet another ticket.

[asakiyume]

Ha! I get it.