Gyani Baile & Dolly Baile

Experience #8 (June 23 thru August, 1997):
In our house we have only one phone line, one phone number, but
multiple outlets in different areas of the house. In summer of 97, Dolly's
teenage niece Sonu was visiting us from Singapore. It was summer
vacation for her and our kids Raeshum and Shobun. These three kids used
to be home during day time when Dolly and I were gone to work. Couple
of times during the day, kids noticed that around 10 AM and then around
2-3 PM, our bedroom phone rings while rest of the phones in house don't.
Our first thought was that there was probably something wrong with the
other phones or the outlets. However kids pointed out that besides those
two times in the day, rest of the time when someone calls the entire
phones ring together like they are supposed to. This helped us rule out the
possibility of other phones having any problem. Since we couldn't make
much out of it we ignored the whole thing. Later, one weekend when we
all were home, our bedroom phone rang; by the time I reached upstairs
and picked up the phone it stopped ringing. This happened couple of
times. In an attempt to understand the problem, one time we asked a local
and an out of town friend to call us so that we could determine if the
problem was related to local calls or long distance calls. We could not
simulate the problem with either local or long distance calls. Another time
while one of the kids was talking on the phone, the upstairs phone started
ringing. This was truly absurd because we have only one phone line and if
that is busy how can we receive another phone call. At this point we
called up the phone company and explained the problem, they agreed that
it did not make any sense but they could not shed any light or help the
issue.
In our bedroom there is a computer; when we work on computer
the phone line is plugged to the computer and not to the bedroom phone.
One time as usual the bedroom phone rang, my son went to pick it up and
found that instead of the phone the line was plugged to the computer and
yet the phone was ringing. This was equally absurd that a phone rings
without being hooked to a phone outlet. Once we were able to pick up the
phone immediately while it was still ringing but there was no one on the
other end.
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