Our internet package comes with a landline. We last used the landline when Mum was alive she liked the phone because she found it easier to use than a mobile. After she died (two-and-a-half years ago) we left it on.
When Sherylyn started working from home she needed a power point to plug in her work headset. On her side of the office there weren’t many power points, so we decided to unplug the phone that connects to the landline. The only calls we ever got on it were marketing calls.
About four weeks into work-from-home we started getting ghost calls on the phone.
It’s still unplugged. Any battery backup should have been well and truly depleted by now. But three or four times a week the phone rings.
The phone itself, which showed the time and the caller on a small screen, is dead. You pick up the receiver and there’s nothing on the other end. No dial tone, no caller, nothing. Exactly what you would expect from a phone that was no longer plugged in.
But still it rings.
I suspect there’s a rational scientific explanation. Like, we didn’t disconnect the line and there’s enough power coming through the line to make it ring, or we have so much wi-fi and Bluetooth around the house that some other signal is interfering. But it’s weird all the same.
And it’s spawned so many story ideas from both of us. Who know a phone ringing when it shouldn’t could generate so many ideas. You won’t get them in the near future, but one day, if you’re reading one of our stories and a phone rings when it couldn’t possibly have, you’ll know where the idea came from.