21 June 2009

Cell phone exorcism

"Your phone is possessed", concluded a customer service agent at the first of the the two wireless Provider store locations I visited yesterday evening. She held my old Razr, as the digits "6...6...6" appeared on the screen.

Evidently, my phone was dialing the number of the beast.

By itself.

Again.

The device had been very adamant about reaching its Master all day, any time I opened it, which is how I reluctantly ended up at that store.

At first, I thought it was a wireless glitch: the Provider's other services are not exactly reliable. I tried calling tech support, but failed: getting through the automated options, as the Crazr stubbornly dialed "666", was impossible.

I recharged the device.

"6...6...6".

I replaced the battery.

The sixes were resilient.

More amused than irritated, I decided to send a text message describing the "LOLz" to a fellow fan of heavy metal thunder and, consequenty, all things diabolical. However, the combination of my typing attempt and the phone's satanic dialing resulted in the word "porn". I probably would have even permitted the device to continue its Bulgakovite pursuit, but undermining my token SMS eloquence with juvenile vulgarity was one "6" too many!

The agent struggled, as the Razr fought for life, refusing to be turned off and continually accessing the web as well as the camera. Eventually triumphant, she (the agent, not the Razr) recommended that I take it to a central store and submit it for repair.

There, a second Provider employee was equally perplexed, "I have never seen anything like this, and I have no idea what could be causing it".

"Not 'what', but 'who'!", I bit my tongue and whipped out a credit card.

And, even though I did not encounter a mysterious Germanic foreigner or a rotten-green Japanese lady from Miike's One Missed Call, I suspiciously glance at my new phone more often than usual.

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