h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There's a couple of things to notice about the connection phonecalls/universal laws.
The most famous one is "Everytime you are lowering yourself in the bathtub, the phone rings",
but I have noticed just as often that whenever I'm late for something, the phone rings
- usually just after I locked the door.
If I tumble inside to answer, you bet they hang up just as I pick up the phone.
The last part is really independent of the first, so it's actually yet another universal law of phonecalls.

And don't forget when you're waiting for someone to return a call at the office! You get up to get another cup of coffee (or tea) and when you return, you find your voice mail light blinking.

It doesn't matter if you wait all day for that return call, it only comes when you're away from your desk and you miss it!

On a somewhat brighter note, if you call someone and they are constantly engaged, go down to the corner shop for 7 minutes, and they will call you while you are out. As you have only missed them by, say, 3.5 minutes, they may well answer when you phone them immediatley. Thank God (or BT) for 1471.

I have CLID on my batphone, so when the Data Call message started flashing I was able to note the number. After it rang Data about ten times I phoned the number and told the woman at the other end that she was dialling my mobile data number, and could she please stop. Minutes later it rang again. Phoned her again, same conversation. Next day, Data Call. Different number - the other was a mobile, this is a land line. I phoned. You know who it was, don't you. I explained, patiently, that she had dialled the wrong number. "No," she said "I've dialled the right number, it says here it's a mobile. For a taxi." "No," I answered, it's MY mobile and I'm getting a bit tired of you ringing it." Five minutes later it rang again. I called her again. I shouted: "I CAN PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT HOWEVER OFTEN YOU RING THIS BLOODY NUMBER THERE WILL *NEVER, EVER* BE A TAXI AT THE END OF IT! THEY'VE GIVEN YOU THE *WRONG NUMBER*!!!"

My diagnosis: clinical stupidity.

When you are in the middle of nowhere, especially at night and your car breaks down or when you are really late for an important appointment and genuinely it is NOT you fault (i.e. trafic on the motorway) and you have to call with your mobile phone you'll find that:
a) Batteries have run out
b) The area isn't covered (you are in the middle of nowhere!)
c) You have left home the phone

The only times when you hear your mobile ringing and you promptly reach for it it is NOT yours that is ringing

In reastaurants all mobiles ring at the same time

The phone will ring when you get into the tub/shower. If it is an important call, you won't get to it in time. The only times you manage to get there on time are when it's a telemarketer.

If you go out for a feed of beer of a evening then the next morning at 3am you will always get a call. It will, of course, be a wrong number and if you're feeling delicate it will be a fax or modem.