Missing Jetliners and Suburban Mysteries

So the big news the past week is the disappearance of a Malaysian Airlines 777 jet. It went off radar, and now no one can find the thing, or its 200 some odd passengers. People are shocked at this -- we assume modern technology is such that stuff should be locatable instantly. PEople forget how hug the ocean is, and world, and since the plane's transponder was off at the time of the disappearance, enormous areas of land and sea need to be scoured to find the thing. Last night, as Wifey was in bed blasting an old movie, a phone number appeared on our U Verse screen, but the house phone didn't ring. The call was from Norman. I knew the absence of a ring meant a phone somewhere was off the hook. I called Norman back on my cell, and then set about finding the offending off the hook phone. Most of the calls are for Wifey -- and most of them are from her mother, so Wifey was in no hurry to restore the service. No luck. All phones appeared in proper off mode. This am, I resumed my search, and walked through our too big house. I counted 8 handsets. Absurd -- for 2 people. Still, all were off, and then I went to the closet area, where a phone booster system sometimes goes off, after an electric surge. Nope -- that was in order, too. I started coming to the realization that we needed to engage in one of the most unpleasant tasks of modern living -- having a tech from ATT come visit. Wifey would complain that she couldn't be expected to stay home all day to accommodate the company, I would likely say forget it -- I'LL stay home, as my sense of OCD is much worse than hers, and it bothered me that the damn phone wasn't working -- even though I almost never got a call! And then, as an afterthought, I made one more sweep, and VOILA! -- found the problem. The fax machine phone was askew... I was so excited -- I exclaimed A HA! out loud, even though I was accompanied only by the strange rescue dog, who was nonplussed. She never answers the phone. And so I wish the searchers well, and luck. IT takes this writer overnight to essentially hang up a phone. Those poor bastards have a whole region to comb...