you have six new messages!

after a well-spent long weekend, i arrived at my desk with six new messages on my voicemail. hmmm, who could they be? this is first time, my highest so far was three. i punched my password and started listening, no one is talking on the other line, just indistinct background noise. oh well, must be just someone like me who don't like leaving voice messages. but wait, it's been a while now and the other line isn't hanging up yet. equipped with now i consider a low-tech voice mailing system, i can't delete the message until it finishes. after three minutes of pain listening to intolerable noise, the message finally ended and i happily pressed number seven on the keypad to flush the stupid message to the drain.

now on to might be more important message... but then its not! it's a continuation of the previous one, darn! what a stupid voice mailing system! i thought messages have three minutes constraint but apparently not :( i'm hearing people chattering, i'm trying to determine if it's local or from manila. i heard filipino chattering, hmmm must be from one my relatives, must have accidentally dialled my number. but no, i hear native english talks, canadian english, yes, it's certainly local. i now hear bells ringing, oh darn, the phone owner is inside the church, and he/she won't be able to notice it until the mass has ended, oh mercy me. do i have to wait for another three minutes? oh dear! ..and guess what? i had to. when i heard the "end of message" recording, i banged the number seven keypad to delete.

two down, four to go? i hope the rest of the messages, or at least some of them, are real ones. i am already seeing myself spending my first 18 minutes of the morning helplessly listening to rubbish messages i can't just delete :( i'm beginning to hate our phone system more! message number three... what else but continuation! oh wait, the other line became busy, dit..dit..dit..dit..dit.. it's over! it's gonna be over now!.. what the f@#*? it's not stopping! but hey, could be just ten beeps or twenty max, just have to be more patient. it ended! the busy tone ended! woohooo!!... but wait again, it's the indistinct background noise again, holy mother of s*@#! am i being punished for something i did last weekend? i can't remember doing anything bad!

my head is starting to ache, this is the first time that i have to endure long presence of noise, intolerable, unescapable noise! please, let the pain stop, please. i feel like i'm being tortured now, but at least i am on message five already, the punishment is almost over :) suddenly i hear something distinct, a singing, should be a church song, but wait, it's not! it's country music, the owner is now on a concert? how could that happen when minutes ago he/she's attending mass? now thoughts are running thru my mind, is this a sabotage? a voice mail spam/attack? a long piece of crap prerecorded purposedly for this? who could've possibly done it? i found myself again running list of names in my mind. darn, i'm becoming paranoid! but no, it can't be, someone must have dialled a wrong number, it can't be really for me!

the music became more distinct, became more familiar, something i just heard, something i heard first time in must be a couple of days ago. i knew it, i recognized the song, it's the song *pause* from last friday's *pause* edmonton's 100th birthday celebration *long pause*... *thinking*... the caller is... me?!! i remember using my phones a couple of times that night, and i now remember that one time i had to hang-up an unintended call before calling someone else. the darn-bugger-i-would-kill-once-i-know-who is me! the person responsible for my punishment is my own self! what a nice joke from i don't know where! but i still hate our telephone system, it's still a rubbish piece of technology even though i'm part of the whole mess.

what a way to start my week! i just hope that not everything would be a disaster. better yet, i hope that was the only one :)