Christopher F Reidy
Christopher Reidy
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CFR BLOG PAGE

The thoughts & Musings of Christopher F. Reidy*

NOTE: Apparently this webpage has some glitches. It tends to randomly switch out visual material.  Why?  Don't ask me.  So, if a pic doesn't match the text...it doesn't!  Rest assured I am trying to amend this problem.  When I get around to it.

*(may contain misuse of apostrophes, miss spellings, overabundance of semi-colons,  wrong word usage, etc.
Please pardon our appearance while we create a new blog experience for you!)

​ALSO: 
Please find an in-complete (or if you prefer; "ongoing") index of blog posts on the homepage, for your convenience!

AND YET ANOTHER NOTE:
The visual switcheroos on these blogs have reached a point where there's no way I can correct them all, so I'm just going to leave them be.  If they don't match the text, just think of them as whimsical funsies decorating the text.  I will continue to supply pictures; but I cannot guarantee their context: much like my mind.
Thank you for your patience!

A FURTHER NOTE:
I try to keep this website relatively free of anything truly morally reprehensible or obscene.  However, in the pursuit of honesty; I will be quite frank about sexuality; as I feel one should be.  To  wit: this website is not for children.  It is decidedly "adult"; although not necessarily not "childish."  I do not feel it is suitable, in some instances, for anyone below the age of 17.  Or maybe a very mature 16...or 15 even.  
THIS WEBSITE IS RATED: PG-15

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Creepy Pasta Calling

4/28/2023

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Picture
So, the other night, I called this phone number I came across...
I was reading from the Uncle John's EXTRA LARGE Bathroom Reader to my husband.  Yes, I read to my husband at night before he nods off.  It's very 19th century.  Aren't I a good husband!  I mean, it's really a win-win. It gets me reading; something I don't do enough.  And it sends him to LaLaLand.  Anyways, the "Uncle John" series are compendiums of, oh what's the word?  Miscellany, I guess.  You know, little articles about everything from the history of bicycles, to the history of SNL, to the origins of unusual words...that kind of thing.  The book is rather unwieldly.  I mean, I have trouble holding on to it lying down, let alone while sitting on the commode.  Not that I read on the commode; but let's not go there.
So, this one article was about the "Mojave Phone Booth."  I had never heard of this particular piece of weird Americana.  There was a phone booth out in the middle of the Mojave desert in California.  Apparently it was some 15 miles from the nearest road and was put in place for miners or something to have a line to the outside world.  Someone learned of it's existence in the early days of the internet and blogged about it, including the phone number.  It went viral and people went in search of the booth and would then answer the phone if and when it rang; thus, connecting with a total stranger.  Eventually, the booth became inundated with the curious.  Due to humans trekking through protected land and causing environmental damage, the phone booth was removed.  However, the phone number was not reassigned or cancelled or whatever it is that happens to old phone numbers.  The number was printed in the Uncle John book, so I decided to call it...
Let's face it.  Phones, as much as we love them, are kinda creepy.  That we can hear the voice of someone on the other side of the world through a little ear piece.  Back in the day, before caller ID and cel phones, when there were only landlines, they were even creepier (well, that they now eavesdrop on our conversations is probably creepier than that).  I remember watching that movie "When Michael Calls" on TV.  It was summer and it was hot, so I decided to sleep out in our trailer in the back yard, by myself.  Sometime in the dark of night, a distant phone started ringing in one of the houses.  No one picked up and it kept ringing and ringing.  I was terrified!  I finally got the courage to run back to the house...I was probably ten or eleven.  I think the urban legend of the baby-sitter and the phantom phone caller really seizes on the creepy element of the house phone.
That scene is still scary.
I think the thing about it, is that you can get into someone's house (and head) via telephone.
So we called the number (I'm not going to give it out here, but you can easily find it on line).
The call went through.  It was not a traditional ring signal; but more a series of electronic beeps.  Finally a recorded female voice came on the line.  It said something like: "This is a conference call; please select one through nine."  I'm not making this up.  I pressed the number one and it disconnected.  I called again.  I got the same message.  This time I pressed nine.  It clicked and then the same voice said: "There are no other callers on the line..."  Joseph immediately made me hang up.
Which was fine by me.  It was just too weird.  Beyond creepy.
The next day I got a text from the number.  The message was: "Do you want to find out how deep the rabbit hole goes?"
What the fuck?
I'm not making this up.  Maybe this was some kind of Blair Witch style publicity for the movie The Mojave Phone Booth.  Which is even weirder since that came out in 2006. I don't know and I don't want to know.  I most decidedly do not want to find out the answer to that question.  I blocked the number and deleted the text.
This was even weirder then the time I got an email asking me if I wanted to join that conspiratorial group that starts with an "I."  I declined that one, too.
Back in the 70's, getting a Ouija board as a gift was pretty common.  This "game" is still mass produced and sold.  Why?  I remember playing it when we were kids.  Thankfully, in our house, it always ended up with: "You're pushing it with your fingers!  This is stupid!  Nothing's happening!" and then it went back into it's box and into the closet.  Where it most decidedly belonged.
Now, you'll have to excuse me.  I've got to find a ten story building so I can go play the Elevator to Another Dimension game.
​Not!
Arrivederci! 
​CFR  44/28/23
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    AUTHOR
    Christopher Reidy is from the Boston area.  He attended Boston University where he studied TV and film which eventually led him to Los Angeles.  There he did the Hollywood thing (which he wasn’t particularly good at) and eventually met his partner Joseph.  He was one of the co-founders of the short lived Off Hollywood Theatre Company which staged several of his original plays.  83 In the Shade is his first novel.  He also dabbles in screenplays, toys with short stories, and flirts with poetry.  Life brought him to bucolic Southwest Virginia where he now resides and is very active in community theatre. It may interest you to know Chris is officially an Irish citizen as well as an American. He also enjoys drawing and painting and looking after a passel of 
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    housecats and two turtles.