Like many people, Petrick had come to rely on his cellphone. He wasn't as good as he used to be about memorizing phone numbers. Excitedly, he recalled one person's cell number and dialed it.
His elation, however, quickly turned to anxious frustration as the automated voice told Petrick that he could not place a collect call to a cellular phone. He could only call out to a land line. Trouble was, he hadn't memorized any land-line numbers.
Hell, he hardly even knew anyone with a land line anymore.
Moral of this story: don't get arrested. No, wait. First, don't "help a pregnant woman kick a nasty heroin habit by locking her inside [your] Santa Monica home so she couldn't buy drugs" and then don't get arrested. But if you must, don't get arrested in L.A. County. But if you do, memorize someone's land line (preferably a bail bondsman) or you could end up in jail for five days and all your friends will think you're dead.
The only landline numbers I know by heart are my grandmother's and my mom at work. Well, and my work, but I don't think I'd be calling work if I was arrested (please never let that happen).
@thebestjasmine I know my parents' number, but they're in the States and I'm in the Netherlands?
@thebestjasmine Oh, jeez, the only landlines I know by heart are my best friend's parents' and my high school boyfriend's parents'. Either way, that's not a call I want to make.
@Ophelia I know my grandma's and my mother's. Not my own (it's not plugged into the wall). The only other phone number I know is my own mobile number. I could maybe remember the number for my last job, but not this one. Useful.
@thebestjasmine Life is short,We always need passions!
SeekCasual*COM, a place for people who wanna start a short-term relationship.And also for finding soul mates.Over 160000 honest members with real photos and detailed profiles.Sign up free and have a try!Nothing to lose!
Oh wow. This happened to me... I was arrested out of state and didn't know anyone's numbers and couldn't get an attorney to take my collect call for over 3 days. And I was afraid to call my parents so they thought I was dead.
So yeah: DON'T GET ARRESTED. EVER.
This happened to me, aside from the five nights (yikes) thing.
"Can I call my best friend from the second grade? Maybe whoever lives there now is nice. And doesn't mind crossing state lines."
I guess I'd have to call my parents if I got arrested, because it's the only landline number I know.
My girlfriend only has a cellphone. My brother only has a cellphone.
Damn. That sucks.
@Emi@twitter Seriously. My boyfriend and entire family are landline-less. I have no idea what I would do if I couldn't call a cell phone. I would literally have to call my office or just rot in jail.
Why is the highlight of this story "don't get arrested if you don't know landline numbers" and not "don't abduct pregnant women and lock them in your home"?
@ponymalta because communication between jails/prisons and the world outside of them is actually a widespread human rights issue in this country and the abduction of pregnant women by crazy juiceboxes is . . . maybe less so?
@ponymalta Because they don't want to piss off the cool kids. Abducting pregnant women is the new black.
@ponymalta - I don't know the details of this story, and the age differences make it seem like there may be something more (and potentially NOT OKAY, but if holding junk-sick people against their will while they kick is "kidnapping", then that's a crime I've committed in the past and will do again if ever asked to.
I mean, not like, randomly kidnapping people hooked on junk. But if somebody is going to put themself through H withdrawal, they will very frequently have friends/family present to prevent them from leaving.
@simone eastbro My idiot older brother recently got locked up for DUI (I said he was an idiot, didn't I?) and had sort of a similar situation happen. He tried to call his buddy, but the buddy's phone wouldn't accept collect calls. So then he tried to call me (woo, landline since '90!), but the jail's phone system was glitching, so it kept dropping the call over and over. He kept calling back and it wouldn't go through.
FINALLY he got through to me, but we only had one minute to talk, so he rapid-fire gave me his buddy's name and phone number. I had to call the buddy (who I didn't know) and tell him to call ANOTHER friend and ask friend to pony up for bail and money to get brother's motorcycle out of impound. Then it was a THRILLING weekend (because if you get chucked in the pokey on a Thursday night, you probably ain't getting out until Monday at the earliest, chum) of phone calls back and forth from brother to me to buddy to friend, playing go-between and relaying messages when brother could manage to call me. And THEN the buddy and the friend both gave me shit because I wasn't willing to schlep all over Hell's half acre on the BUS to go collect the bail and impound cashola from friend, and get it to the jail, etc. But I maintained that it wasn't MY friggin' problem that brother was such a moron (dude, this was SO not his first DUI rodeo), and if his pals wanted to put themselves out to spring him, that was their prerogative, but I was not going to lift a finger beyond workin' the phone.
So eventually they get him out, and come to find out, the jailers had basically denied him use of a phone to make his phone calls initially. They gave him a cordless phone that was malfunctioning, and refused to supply him with a working phone. Because of which his attorney thinks he can get the case thrown out. Lovely. In any case, the bonehead has been wearing one of those Lindsay Lohan-style alcohol-sensing ankle monitors since November, which is sort of delicious to me, really. :-/
There is something very bizarre about that dude and that story. Probably the whole kidnapping thing, and the casual $150,000 bail problem.
@mczz If you're a property-owner, you can generally put that up as collateral. Since this happened in California, probably even the local homeless dudes' refrigerator boxes are valued at more than that. Also, it's at least the deal in some places that property owners can make bail by paying 10% of what it's set at, which is how my mom got to bail my sister out for $100 instead of $1,000.
@wharrgarbl This is all true. But I'd still like to know more about this totally strange story.
@mczz It's kind of like a mad-libs of "what went wrong here?". It's illegal to keep someone in your basement after they say they want out, even if they made you swear on a stack of bibles that you wouldn't let them out to score no matter how much they begged you to once the withdrawal symptoms got really bad. Even if everyone involved had the absolute best intentions, and the woman comes forward and says "He was just doing what I'd asked him to do the day before, I'm sorry I freaked out and called 911, he was trying to help me" and charges get dismissed, you're still getting arrested if the cops get called and everyone is on the same page re: pregnant lady confined to the basement over her current objections.
I have a landline because my oldman boyfriend refuses to not be listed in the phonebook[?].
So what I'm saying is everyone should call me when they get arrested.
@JoanTition: I not only have a landline, I have a corded phone in my basement that works in a power outage. So all you jailbirds can call me too, and be thankful the cell signal at my house is so crappy.
@JoanTition and Bittersweet: I have a land line because my building gets crappy reception. Though if I called myself when I got arrested no one would know about it until I died in jail and the cops got around to listening to my voice mail.
None of the people I'd call have landlines. Even my grandparents don't have a landline anymore. One of my friends wound up in this boat (not for five days, though) and had a d'oh moment afterwards when she remembered that a) I have a landline and b) she knows the number to it.
Also, just as an fyi, because you never know: kicking an opiate addiction while pregnant can cause you to miscarry. So, if you're trying to get clean because you're pregnant and want to carry to term and don't want to fuck up your baby, hie thee to a methadone clinic.
Oh, I was just thinking about this ("this" being my ignorance of people's phone numbers, not abducting anyone). While I remember my telephone number from when I was 4, the only other one I know by heart is my friend-of-32-years' mom... who, I suppose, is just as promising a bail-poster as anyone else is (maybe better).
My parents do this annoying thing where they won't pick up the phone unless you let it ring once, then hang up and call again. They won't get a phone with caller ID for reasons I can't understand. Every time I call I think to myself, what if I was arrested? Or worse, what if I was in the hospital?! They'd miss the call, forget to check the voice mail for ages and ages and I would never forgive them. If I even survived.
@beams! You should take the second half of that comment and copy it down in a Hallmark card and send it to them.
POW! Parent guilt.
Anyone else want to know more about why a 67-year-old retiree was helping a pregnant junkie kick her habit? That's the story I want to read about.
@rucifie Yeah, I was much more interested in that than this man's inability to remember a landline number.
This is why I love Minneapolis. Cab: 333-3333; Bail Bonds: 333-3030.
And I thought I was being so smart by carrying a scrap of paper with Mister cell phone number on it...
Ooh, you know who else I could call? WGBH in Boston. My mom wouldn't let us watch "bad" TV even when it was fundraising week at PBS, so I still remember their number from childhood.
@Ophelia I love the idea of WGBH routinely getting messages left asking them to call a cell phone number and let somebody know that somebody else is in jail and needs her to please come bail him out.
@Ophelia WGBH seems trustworthy and helpful!
@wharrgarbl Seriously, right? I feel like this needs to be a plot point in the next thing Dennis Lehane writes.
I come home to 100+ never taken, totally unwanted phone books sitting in the common area of my building, but LA can't put together a bondsman yellow pages?
LA, I love you, get it together.
Other moral of the story: If your last name is Petrick, people are going to think you have an accent.
(See also: my brother's friend Jathan, who has an impossible time convincing people he doesn't lisp.)
@figwiggin Hahahahahaha. You just made me laugh out loud for the first time today. Jathan!
@figwiggin Hahahah omg I should never have kids because I totally want to do this to them on purpose. It's the practical joke that keeps on giving!
Ugh. This is my nightmare. I can only occasionally remember my wife's (cell) number. I'd have to call my parents.
I...could call my best friend's parents who live half an hour away. Or whoever lives at my old house, also half an hour away. Or Jenny.
@figwiggin I was just thinking of Jenny. She'd help out, right?
I have a landline, plus a back up hardwired phone. But I've already told all my friends I won't bail them out of jail. The friends that would end up there, probably could use an adult time out. Even my own dad has told me he won't bail me out of jail and he's a lawyer! We all rot in jail together.
@maevemealone Indeed, my parents have always told me and my brothers if we ever ended up in jail, they absolutely would not bail us out. Barring a situation where we were accused of something they definitely knew we didn't do, of course. They're not monsters. ;)
Older brother is the only one who's ever tested their resolve. See upthread for the scintillating (?) account of his latest escapade.