I felt like killing someone today. About a month ago, maybe more, my phone started ringing off the hook. 60 calls in 4 hours AND all of them hung up immediately even before I said anything. It continued the next day like 20 calls and it still continues to today though usually the calls only come at night around 2am.

It doesn't seem like a prank because (a) I don't have enough friends for it to be a prank 🍺 calling somebody everyday over a month would be a prank on the prankster.. It doesn't seem like a wrong # either because they get disconnected IMMEDIATELY. As soon as I pick up the phone I hear 'click'. In other words not enough time to check if it's the correct # or not. Even if it was a wrong fax or modem # they wouldn't disconnect immediately and you'd hear the carrier tones etc. So, basically I don't know how to explain it. That it's gone from 60 calls a day down has helped though after the second day I unplugged the phone. I only plug it in when I need to call somebody but of course that means nobody can call me. When I plug it in, always, without fail, around 2am to 4am it starts ringing so I unplug it.

Of course this is not cool but I've been putting off calling the phone company partly because it's never convienent to call them (I'm never home on weekdays) and partly because I knew it would be hard to explain in Japanese. Well I finally called today. The first person I talked to believed it was a prank and I couldn't get it through to her that there's no f*cking way. I asked her to check the # of the person that's calling. She said I'd have to talk to the police to do that. Of course I don't care what the # is. If it's from just one # then it's a prank and I can go to the police. If it's from 100rds of #s then it's something else. Personally I think it's a bug in the NTT computers because that's the only thing that explains the immediate disconnect.

Anyway, I told her to fix it and she said if my phone is broken I need to call another #. That guy didn't get it either. His understanding was that I couldn't receieve calls because they would get disconnected. He verified that he could call me. When I tried to explain it more he also said it was a prank and that therefore the issue is between me and the prankster and not me and NTT.

So, I'm still stuck with a useless phone line. I guess I should have left the phone plugged in while I was in H.K. Then it would have rang all night, keeping up my neighbors until they called the police to come disconnect it.