Marker Boarding and More Unexplainables

Of course a couple hours after I showed you Hick's handiwork putting in a marker board in the sunroom/kids' playroom of Hick House... he finished trimming it out. I added the completion photo to yesterday's post, but in case you don't want to look back, here it is:

Just between you and me, out of the mouth of Hick... Mrs. HOS (Hick's Oldest Son's missus) was not too happy with his choice of gray paint. Even though she is on record as saying she wanted the toy box at the other end of the sunroom trimmed in gray. And the trim of the windows and doors being gray. Hick is kind of hard-headed, and said (to me), "I painted it, and I made it gray!" He also said that it didn't look good with white paint. Whether he actually tried painting it white, I don't know. I DO know that he made a special trip to Lowe's for a gallon of gray paint, which cost him $13. As much as I hate to agree with Hick, just on general principle... I think gray was the best choice!
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In other news, I got a text from The Pony at 11:45 Tuesday night. You may recall that he is living in his student apartment for the summer, at the University of Oklahoma.

"Well, my phone is possessed."

"Why?"

"I was playing music while texting my Bestie. On a thing that doesn't play ads. Well. The music stopped. What sounded like a dozen ads all started playing at once, overlapping each other (which shouldn't be possible with how phones work since I had nothing open that could even play one). Then this weird discordant music that was nowhere near what I was listening to started playing with staticky sounds in it that almost sounded like breathing or a heart beating."

"Yikes!"

"Then the phone started talking. Through the weird and terrifying music that didn't stop when I took out my earphones (which pulling out the cord is supposed to stop any audio). It was saying something that most definitely wasn't in English or Spanish or anything I recognize and it kept getting louder. It didn't shut up until I tried to record."

Of course I told The Pony about my toilet brush jumping off the toilet on Monday.

"And, like, the recording caught the echo of something I think (since what I had on TV sounded nothing like that) and it sounds like it's saying "pull (or maybe put) her back."

"That's weird. Are you okay?"

"Freaked out because the jump from instrumental music to that was terrifying by itself, and phones physically should not be able to make that kind of discordant noise."

"It must be picking up some signal. Like when Alexa goes crazy on people."

"I emailed you the 1 second clip thing my phone recorded with what to me sounds like the words "pull her back."

"Do I want to listen to it here in my lair right now?"

"It's just a 1 second thing that's about as distinct as anything you hear on ghost shows. "

(Which I refuse to watch at night, alone.)

"Tell me if you hear what I did from it."

"I heard nothing."

"Not even a sound? Or just not words?"

"Nope. Nothing."

"Okay. That's freaky. My phone isn't playing the sound on it anymore."

"My media player showed that it played. I repeated. Still nothing."

"Turn the sound up. I found it. My phone has to be at literally max volume for me to hear it."

"Have you been into the wine?"

"No, I haven't been ! My date took the bottle home, thank you very much."

"That is kind of unusual." (Meaning taking home the wine!)

"I have to have it repeat constantly to hear it. It also sounds like "Who was that?" You hear it now?"

"Max volume, with my speakers turned up, maybe a BOING kind of sound at the very end. Something. Not words. Or maybe THAT if it's a word. Sounds more mechanical like BOING or BLOOP."

"Yeah. The music and voice as far as I could tell shut off as soon as I hit record. I definitely don't remember hearing that until I looked at the recording."

"No sympathy for my toilet?"

"Imagine if your computer suddenly started playing sounds like it was possessed and talking to you in the middle of the night, then compare which is more scary."

"Well, I don't go out of my way to attract such things, like wearing a freaky wooden mask. They need to know their place, and I ain't entertaining."

"You made me do that for a blog picture or something!"

"Oh. I guess it was Genius who wore that mask down the steps and hollered to wake me from my recliner slumber. It's probably your neighbors doing some wizardy kind of prank on your phone through the walls."

"My phone doesn't have any of the bluetooth or other mobile sharing options enabled. I was staring at the phone during it. Nothing should have been making any sound."

"Some things are always on, even though your think you turn them off. Like that tracking thing I turned off, yet it still shows my every move."

"Mom. I know more about technology than you. There's only three things on my phone that can play sound without it being up and looked at, or showing an active thing. Notifications in general, the music app that had paused itself, and phone calls. That trip thing is probably because of Google. Their location stuff is different from the phone's GPS."

"Okay. I've been schooled."

Seriously. I know nothing about how phones work. I'm HOPING The Pony just has an active imagination, or fell asleep momentarily and dreamed that.