As a sign that either time stretches and contracts in a way it hadn't before COVID or that I am getting very, very old, I am only pretty sure that this happened this year and when my parents were home. Nor do I remember the circumstances behind how they figured it out. But one morning, my parents told me that the home phone, the landline, wasn't working -- again. And, for some reason, they asked me to test out the alarm. When it's set off, it's supposed to trigger a call to the alarm company. My folks figured out that didn't happen, presumably because the call is supposed to come from the phone line the alarm company has on file -- the landline.
So, to test it, I was told by the alarm company to put the alarm on test and then to trip it, to see whether or not the landline indeed is not sending that call to the alarm company. When you trip an alarm, you hear some moderately-timed beeping, and then you hear more frequent beeping, and then finally it goes BEEEEEEP!!!!-BEEEEEEEP!!!!-BEEEEEEP!!!!, and I could barely stomach the bile coming from inside me as my fight-or-flight instinct kicked in in anticipation of the escalating warning from the alarm. I hate that sound. I truly do.
Anyway, once the alarm is fully triggered, we had to call the alarm company to see if they got a call. They didn't. Tried it again. They didn't. So the home phone number doesn't work.
Last time it went dead, my parents asked me to call the phone company and get it fixed. Not this time. Nope, those unsentimental motherfuckers (Mother in particular) went gung-ho on this idea they heard of that an alarm could be set up through wi-fi. It'll be an obviously better connection, plus it'll save money. All I have to do is say the word ... and abandon the home phone number we have ever had, and I have ever known.
I could see the writing on the wall. It wasn't working. It's supposed to work, but once again, after about two years (I think), it was on the fritz again. And how can I argue against saving money? But ... this was our phone number. We have had it for almost a half-century. It's become a part of us. Well, they don't give a shit, but it's become a part of me. I don't care how ridiculous this sounds, but I am defined by that phone number -- a phone number that I haven't used in decades, a phone number that apparently hadn't worked in months, but it's a part of me. And I sure as fuck won't let a piece of myself die just because it makes sense. (Yeah, that sentence sounds crazy. I mean it.)
I couldn't beat back this situation and my parents' mental momentum. Once they decide something needed to be done, they want it done. They wanted my permission to do this (and they needed me to call the person who installed the alarm to come over and convert the trip line from phone to wi-fi), and like a complicit motherfucker, I said yes. They then told me to call the phone company and cancel the line. I refused to do that. But I told them I did.
And I still have the landline. Yes, and I'm still paying for it, even though the line is still dead. Have to say, the phone company has no damn clue it's not working, and I kind of think it's on them to know that it isn't, and that it isn't incumbent upon us to tell the company. So I'm not sentimental for the phone company. I still am sentimental for the phone number.
In the past, I have wondered whether I could take the home phone number and use it as a cellphone number. I don't know when it was possible, but it is now. It's called "porting." Now, of course, I have a cellphone number that I've had -- and has also become a part of me -- for a long, long time, and I don't think changing cell numbers will make a lot of sense now. But I want to keep it, and I think I can use the old home number as something else: My Google Voice number. I have a phone number to which calls can be forwarded, and I may have had that for about a year or so, but I am not sentimental for that number. I can give it up. And I will.
The thing is is that one cannot port a house number into a Google Voice number. No, you have to convert the landline to a cellphone number, then port that number onto Google Voice. There will be one-time fees for doing this port twice, but I will do it. I'm just scared that, for some reason, it doesn't work and I'll lose the landline for good.
And that is what I am going to do today as soon as I am done blog posting this. I hope to find my carrier's store, find someone who's genuine and competent and not on the make, get him to call the landline company and then give me a SIM card to which the landline can be imprinted. In the meantime I will need to put this new SIM card in my phone because apparently either the phone company or Google will "call" me on this new SIM and I have to answer. I cannot do this double port thing without answering this "call." I then have to ask Google to port the number from the SIM, and maybe in a week or two (?) this will all be done.
I found instructions on doing this double port thing online, and I have no idea if this is going to work. But for the sake of keeping my home phone number -- and in the name of saving money I am otherwise wasting -- I need to do this, and now's the time to do it. Wish me luck.
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