Butt Dialing

I've always found this commercial quite funny. The Motorola Slvr on the family plan, which was replaced by an iPhone, was horrible for butt dialing, and had to be kept with the keypad lock on at all times. Always the #1 & #2 spots on the quick dial, too.

It was still a great phone, so became our home phone on the shared minutes plan. No more butt-dialing. At least, not until Spring/Summer, when B1 started sticking it in his pocket on trips with his younger siblings to the park up the street. Until I showed him how to set the key lock, slot #1 (me) and slot #2 (dad) were treated to many, MANY calls featuring the muffled sounds of children on the playground and teens with skateboards or frisbee.

Background story in place, so let's flash forward to the present.

Our house was robbed on Thursday. The @#!*! took our new 42" LCD television and laptop. Called police, was told by the responding officer it was probably someone we know, or an extremely lucky young criminal with great timing. Nothing to worry about from a safety standpoint. A detective would be calling me, but I should call if we had anything to add after talking with B1 (away for the week) and the neighbors.

Around six o'clock, I received a text from a number I didn't recognize about Michael Jackson's death. I figured it was a misdial, and went on with my evening. A couple hours later, and several miles away, dad received two calls in a row, of the background noise variety. Thinking it might be work or kid related, he called back, and got a young man who denied making the calls. I was asked what - if any - business/personal finance activity I'd done on the stolen Dell, in case it was someone going through our data. (None - it was the kid computer.) I asked for the phone number. It matched the earlier text message I'd received.

That's too large of a coincidence for me. Especially when you take into account the discovery that the home cell phone was missing from it's normal spot on the shelf right next to the table where the laptop had been lifted.

There was no activity on the phone after the time we left for the pool on Thursday, so whoever took it wasn't using it on our plan. When I called the number, it went straight to auto message, no ringing. Our two numbers were stored in the phone, not on the sim card.

So here's what we're thinking:

The @#*%! who took it replaced the sim card with his own (or gave/sold to a friend), but didn't think to wipe the actual phone memory. When he sent a text about MJ's death to the #1 contact on his card, it sent it to me, the #1 on the phone. Later that evening, while out & about with the SLVR in his pocket, he butt-dialed the #2 stored on the phone. There haven't been any more mysterious phone calls, so the return call on Thursday probably tipped him off.

Left a message with the Sandy Springs police Friday morning. Didn't hear back from them, so did a Reverse Lookup on the phone number. Got an actual name and a residential address in Decatur. Makes me think the "really lucky" option is the case, if this is the @#%*!, and that he probably works at the road construction site less than half a mile away.

Still haven't heard back from the police, though I've called again. Either they're calling my home number, which doesn't go to anything until I visit the at&t store, instead of the cell number I left in the message, or my little non-violent home invasion is far down the list of priorities.

Either way, if they don't hurry, the inexperienced young criminal who robbed my house is going to get away with it. And next time, he'll know to wipe the phone before using it or giving/selling to a friend.