It happened on a Friday. The morning had to be organized to the last detail. You relied on that detail because you had a 9:00 AM tee time. Working backwards, you had to consider checking in, acquiring a cart and arriving at the range precisely at 8:30 AM. This time allowance gave you ample opportunity to practice swing flaws that would help guarantee failure at least 70 percent of the time. Regardless, this rigid schedule was necessary because your new pup must check in at the vet at 7:45 for vaccinations, check-up and overnight stay. Which meant you had to remember to collect his food, bed, toys and one shoe to remember you by. The vet routine put you back home at 7:58 AM, leaving you barely a half hour for your own personal rituals. In hindsight, you couldn’t have performed at a higher level, including cleaning up, watering plants, charging the range finder and setting the security system to lock down the place. Perfecto. That is, until you and your fellow players reached the 3rd green at Sedgefield Country Club. You were lining up your second putt when the official looking government SUV eased up and parked on the road directly behind you. The officer stepped out of his vehicle and you approached him to see if you could likely give him directions. In those few seconds, you recall hearing sirens and other alarms as you played the first hole 40 minutes ago. The young officer said, “We’re looking for a man walking a lab pup.”
That’s weird, you thought. “I have a lab pup, but it can’t be me you’re looking for.”
“Is your name Dick?”
You come unzipped. “What? Well, yes, but my pup’s at the vet . . .” all the while thinking, how many guys named Dick have a yellow lab pup in this neighborhood?
Then, the hammer. “Your son Rich called 911 and we have a dozen law enforcement and rescue people out looking for you because you left him a voice mail that sounded like you were in trouble.” Impossible. You quickly explain, you never called Rich, never left a message, your cell phone is in a golf bag, never been opened, on mute, with maybe 1% battery left. “Yes sir, but you also called your son in Philadelphia and left a garbled message that said something about ’emergency.'” Your playing partner, always quick with a solution, accusingly offered, “Hell, Dick, you butt dialed them; you butt dialed me before.” By now, you’re more mystified than annoyed. “Butt dialed both of them?” Apparently, you were supposed to have done that very thing between 8:30 and 8:45 on the driving range, when, as you recall, you were standing, not sitting, not kneeling, not lying on the wet turf.
But it gets worse.
“Sir, your daughter Amanda — ‘daughter-in-law’ — oh, sorry, daughter -in-law is at your house now with the sheriff’s people and they broke through your french doors in the back; they didn’t know that you weren’t locked up in the house in trouble.”
Quickly officer no-name made a couple of calls. “Sir, your daughter-in-law says the security alarm is going off and ADT is calling; she doesn’t know how to turn it off.”
Naturally, she doesn’t, you thought. In the next five minutes, you called both Amanda and Rich — and thanked them for alerting the army who were skilled in breaking down doors. Everybody was sorry. You were sorry for being so organized to play golf; they were sorry but had no choice under the circumstances. Nobody could reach you. As far as they knew, you were lying at the bottom of stairs, bleeding profusely on the oriental rug, comatose, or simply toast. Exactly the point, you think to yourself, over and over. Nobody could reach you because your cell phone was on mute, unused by you for anything. You had no intention to call anyone and weren’t receptive to receiving calls on the golf course. All well and good, but your cell phone had other ideas. In your bizarro world, it decided to make calls to two sons in the span of minutes, and, mind you, leave voice mails — one uttering “oh, my God;” the other, “emergency.”
Now that’s one magic mobile.
To be trite — all’s well that ends well. BTW, you missed the putt.
Epilogue:
Since this incident, you spent 20 minutes with Apple Technical Support. After hearing this story, the technician had not one clue — in fact, suggested it would be shared with supervisors to see if some theory might emerge. You partner in business always loves to remind you — when you’re having a malfunction or problem with your electronic devices, you can be sure it’s user error. Yeah, what else? The Russians?