Is there anyone who hasn’t seen the old film noir classic, ”Sorry, Wrong Number” with Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster? Made in the 1940s, the film weaves a clever tale of a woman who overhears plans for her own murder over an accidental cross of telephone wires. She commands the operator, whom she refers to as “a good woman who probably doesn’t understand,” to re-connect her to the number she reached in error and not the one she was trying to dial in the first place (her husband’s office number).
Even in the movies, this cannot be done and it actually was her husband’s private line she had reached (the right number), but that is a call waiting of another color. In its wildest cinematic dreams, Hollywood could never have predicted that the repercussions of modern technology could be as potent a motive for murder as any inheritance via the death of a wealthy spouse!
Call Waiting is a great annoyance to anyone out there not engaged in a three-way conference call. It uses a special tone to let you know that someone else is calling you while you are on the phone. I don’t know about you, but if one more person inquires who I am and then after a significant pause from the other end of the phone says: “Can I call you back?” I will absolutely scream bloody murder. Consider how rude this following scenario is.
Pick up the phone. Oh, it’s only you.
I’m on the line with someone more important.
Can I call you back when my time is at less of a premium?
Talk about an inferiority complex! How could anyone fail to develop one after being treated that way?
What do YOU think about “call waiting?”