The "Saving a $100" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Midnight and I just got off the line with my security company.   You see, we have been having a problem with our phone service and we finally figured it out.  Had to do with the security company.  Here's how it went ....... Carol would be talking with a friend or one of our kids in the evening and the phone line would go dead.  Happened every so often and we didn't think too much about it.  She would call them back or they would call us back.  We thought it maybe something in the phone that we have had for years.  Then it started to be annoying.  She would be talking, the line would go dead and when she immediately tried to redial immediately, the line was still dead.  I suggested that she place the phone on the charger unit when she goes to bed, because I thought the phone charge was the problem.  Still happened.  OK, time for a new phone system.  We looked at a few and finally settled on one at Costco.  We said that we would make a trip at the end of the week to Costco and pick up the phone, since it was on sale and there was no limit on how many we could buy at the sale price.  Probably would buy half a dozen so we would have phones for the rest of our life.  Now, how many people really buy more than one?  My guess - 0.  Anyway, during the week Carol was talking on the phone and yep, the phone went dead.  "Why does it always happen at the same time each evening?" she asked me, not expecting an answer.  So she tried and tried and tried again to connect and each time the phone line was busy or dead.  Then a few seconds later, between her tries, the phone rang and it was the security company calling to find out why they couldn't reach us after they had seized our line for our evening test.  "Ah Ha!" I said.  "We don't need a new phone.  It's the security company seizing our line and making it unusable for a few seconds while they do the testing."  Yep, that's what they told us.  The phone line is seized every evening at exactly 8:32 PM for a daily test.  Carol asked them why they do it at that time and they said that is the time we chose.  Don't think so!!  Why would we chose that time when that is the time we make most of our calls.  Somehow their system got mixed up, maybe because of a power outage at one time or another, and got changed.  She asked how we can make it a different time and they told her that we have to call them immediately before our selected time to tell them it is a test-set time.  Carol and I decided that midnight was a good time and guess who had to stay up and make the test-set call.  Well, all is well in LDub's house with the phone system.  Didn't have to buy an entire new system after all.  And now we don't have to make the trip to Costco and spend the mandatory $100 that we tend to spend when we go there.  How lucky was that?  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.