Time for a random, genuinely
Lebanese anecdote. This may seem a bit silly, but this woman brightened my day
with a laugh this morning. If you are not Lebanese, there is a rare probability
that you have ever experienced a chronic power cut, and this little tale will
seem baffling to you, but if you are, this is exactly the common everyday story
you may usually encounter.
A little background for the
foreigners first: To avoid numbing details, I will just tell you that due to
repeated strikes and raids over power supply stations, and due to constant shortage
in fuel, we don’t get electricity in Lebanon 24/7; instead, the small amount of
power supplied is divided between the various areas with the power being cut
anywhere between 3 and 24 hours per day depending on the region on a daily
basis.
The above hopefully explains why
the revered power company in Lebanon receives countless phone calls every day
from complaining citizens hoping for an explanation as to why the power was cut
longer than usual today, or why the broken transmitter hasn’t been fixed yet,
etc…
Now, we live near the power
company’s main branch in the capital, and thus, we share with it the same area
code, as well as the same first four digits and, as luck would have it, the
sixth or last digit in the phone number too. This means that our home number
differs in a mere digit to the company’s, and as luck would have it once again,
it seems that many, many years ago, the company had what feels like millions of
billing forms printed out with the wrong fifth digit assigned in the number
listed as its hotline on the bottom of the form. The fifth digit printed
coincides with ours.
Maybe the company has since
printed new forms, or maybe it is still using its stash of old ones with our
digits, but at any rate, it seems that there is a huge amount of people still
referring to those forms and dialing our home number every time they encounter additional
power trouble or simply feel like ranting over their broken washing machines,
their melting ice cream or their wasted leftovers.
I would say 50% of the calls we
get at home are meant for the company, and every single day we are subjected to
hundreds of ever so funny yet saddening insults before we get the chance to
tell people on the other end of the line that they dialed the wrong number. And
even then, most people don’t believe us and suggest that we are indeed the
company and that we are just making pranks on them and that this is simply outrageous
of us. Imagine! J
My brother recorded his voice on
the answering machine a while back, and since then, many callers who get the
voice mail in which my brother sings Na na na nan a, we are not home, leave us
a messaaageee – in Arabic of course and with irreparable cords – leave us
really, and I mean really angry messages, which are hilarious to hear, since
even with that silly voice recording, they still believe that the power company
is mocking them J
So if you have ever wondered –
which you probably haven’t – what an upside down prank call might be like, this
is it.
But let me get to the story
before I forget it.
This morning, the phone rang and
I picked it up. The 50 something lady on the other end of the line didn’t even
bother with a hello before unleashing her wrath over the power company, its
employees, the government, the minister, the citizens, etc…You name it and you
can bet she insulted it. And when she finally had the courtesy of taking a
breath between rants, I took the opportunity to calmly try and explain the
situation, which she laughingly interrupted saying: I know my dear, I know it
is the wrong number, I have called here before and you have explained it to me
already, and she went on heartily laughing. Baffled and completely dubious, I
inquired as to why she would call us again if she indeed knew all about it, to
which she replied: Well at least with you someone picks up!
No comment J The end.
