This last weekend my kids MySpace status read: “Pocket Dialing almost ruined my weekend”.
Almost all of us have pocket dialed – hitting a button on your cell phone while the phone is in your pocket or purse so that it calls someone on your recent call list or address book. Sometimes you even dial yourself and end up with a lovely muffled message on your voicemail.
But this last weekend my kids accidental pocket dialing created a situation you might only find on a sitcom.
He was at his house with his best friend and they had just settled in for a fun evening of XBOX live. Some shooter game. Sometimes they target zombies, sometimes aliens and sometimes they just play capture the flag. But whatever they end up playing, the headsets go on and the volume goes up. Being over 18 they typically play M rated games and use M rated language.
On this particular night he had called his grandmother earlier in the evening. So her number was on the top of the recent calls list ( he typically communicates with his friends via text message and rarely uses his phone to actually call anyone ).
They were in to the game when he accidentally pocket dialed granny. She didn’t realize they were playing a video game and he didn’t realize she was listening in. She didn’t know what was going on and so assumed he was being attacked. She didn’t have any numbers for the neighbors so she did the only thing she could think of and that was to call the local Sheriff.
The Sherif responded and disrupted their game. After finding that the only ones being attacked were the virtual zombies the Sheriff had to call back granny and explain how there was indeed a thing such as pocket dialing.
Granny now has the contact phone numbers for everyone in the neighborhood and another reason to mistrust her cell phone.
