Bleep You, Mercury!!

I wonder if you curse Mercury, if it can hear you. That even in writing its name, it’s able to send its retrograde forces splooshing over your home and everything else you touch, like when Mickey gets carried away wearing the wizard’s hat in Fantasia and all the mops take over and wreak havoc…or something like that. I think that’s what happened to me today. I was speaking, perhaps a little too loudly, about how Mercury screws everything up and my concerns for the election (phew!), and I think it caused Mercury to take revenge on my new office phone.

First of all, let me just preface by explaining that our new work phones are state of the art and all connected over the internet. You have to do a retina scan just to change the time and date. I wish I were kidding, but it wouldn’t recognize my eyeball through my contacts or something, so even when I did my last resort cure-all turn-it-off-and-back-on-again, the screen still said 2AM on January 7. That is not correct. At all. But what turned out to be infinitely more upsetting was that someone left me a message.

Over the course of 2 weeks, we have received 3 elaborate emails, an e-vite to a formal training and 2 PDF files on how to operate our new phones. But the only piece I could find on how to access my voicemail was under Article 4, Chapter 7, Section P.3 of the 2^nd PDF file in the fine print: “To access your voicemail you must visit the media mailbox center hosted on your server platform linked to the framework’s IP address and plug in the pass code given in the upper right hand corner of the screen that blinks on your phone when you type in the code hidden in the tongue of your IT representative’s left shoe.” Being the open-minded modernist that I am, I had slammed on the brakes just after plugging the damn thing in. I needed time to congratulate myself for entering the 21^st century…and to scrounge for food in the kitchen. Needless to say, I had not set up my voicemail yet.

So when a colleague called and I missed it, the phone beeped at me to indicate that I had a message. What a lovely feature! I hit the Message button and a woman’s voice said “Password”. Her tone made it impossible to determine if she was jabbing me for information: “Password?” and holding out for a response; or bracing me for top secret information “Password:…”. The answer was made clear when she broke the long pause that followed by yelling at me: “No password detected!” Rather than problem-solving, or trying to reason with her, I got frazzled and hung up.

But the phone wasn’t done. No matter what I did, I couldn’t track down the password. It continued to bleep at me every 20 seconds or so – just long enough to let the idea that it wouldn’t beep again fester in my brain. Then bleep! Augh! It was like Chinese water torture killing me slowly. I knew the professionals down the hall could hear it and were cursing me just as I had cursed the venomous red planet. I unplugged my phone and plugged it back in. I remembered a Furby that I had when I was young. It too was possessed and would come to life and say “OOOhhhhhh” even after we took its batteries out and taped its eyes shut. Actually, I think it’s still in my old house somewhere because my mom clings to the delusion that it’s a collectible; or she’s just saying that and keeps it around to torment me with its creepiness). The constant bleeping and Furby flashbacks were too much, and it’s quite possible that I started to develop associative PTSD. Bleeep! Augh!

The kicker was that I already knew who left the message and why. Maybe if I called her back the phone would be smart enough to know that the whole issue was taken care of. I called her back…lovely chat….bleeeep!

My knight in shining armor came masquerading in the form of our IT man who finally called in from the motherland (also known as San Francisco). I would like to tell you that the password was a code as complicated as the time and date setup…so I think I will leave it at that in the name of whatever sliver of respect for my intelligence and dignity may be left.

But see, it’s not my fault. It’s actually Mercury in retrograde. If you buy into astrology (and even if you don’t), Mercury regulates intelligence, truth and education and governs transportation and communication issues. The questionably credible website Astrozone.com (ie the first site to pop up in my Google search on Mercury in retrograde) had this to say: What happens when Mercury retrogrades? You miss appointments, your computer equipment crashes, checks get lost, you find the car you just purchased during Mercury retrograde is a lemon. (Or, you hate your haircut, the lamp you bought shorts out, your sister hates her birthday gift.) There will be countless delays, cancellations and postponements--but know these will benefit you in the long run. Don't fight them, although your frustration level and feeling of restlessness will be hard to cope with at times.

See? Totally not my fault. I don’t think I’ve ever had a birthday in retrograde before, so we’ll see how this works out. I may just stay in bed straight through my special day until Nov 26, when the planet rights itself again. Whatever I do, I can assure you it will not involve the office phone.