Shirley

Shirley called every day. In fact, she called all day, every day. 

Phone support at the large ISP I worked for were her only human contact, save for her dog (yes, her dog was her other human contact).

It was August of 2003 during a fairly bouncy news cycle of tropical storm activity here in Florida, which for some reason meant higher call volume.

One rainy night Shirley, our favorite conspiracy theorist called in and I took the call. She was pretty upset, and her call history showed that she had been very busy talking to techs throughout the day. As with the deaf caller in my previous tale, she had been passed over many times and was very frustrated, which was not unusual given her level of verbal-mental acrobatics.

"What's wrong Shirley?" I asked, expecting the usual quick fix issues she would call about.

"Is this the police?" She replied. "Just kidding, I can't call the police. They won't answer my calls anymore. My dog changed my password and stole all of my emails. Can you help me?"

"Of course, why did your dog change your password?" I liked talking to Shirley, so I tried to be pleasant with her when she called.

"Because"... "Because he doesn't want me to meet another man. He's been trying to stop me since he died." 

Well that was an unexpected response.

"Okay, I've changed your password to ___. Try that."

"That worked. Thank you honey. Now can you tell this damn dog to stop stealing my emails!?" she was crying now. "I tried to go to the police station to report him, but the neighbors moved my fence, and if I try to leave, they'll shoot me."

"That's terrible, Shirley. Do you have someone you can talk to?"

"Only you, and my husband." husband? She's married?

"Oh, okay, your husband? What does he say about all this?" I confusedly retorted.

"I told you, he's been changing my password and stealing my emails. He doesn't want me to meet anyone else since he died!"

"Shirley, do you mean your dog is your husband?"

...?

"That's what I said ain't it?" she said with a snappy southern smokers drawl.

"Okay, I understand now" I do? "I'll tell you what, let's make your password something really good so he can't reset it."

"Okay" she said, sounding a bit calmer now.

We reset her password again and I asked if there was anything else I could help her with. The answer was always yes, and I was a bit desperate for a resolution both for her and myself. I'm not proud of this next part, but it seemed to make her feel better, so I'll own up to it.

"Okay, what's that?"

"My emails, I lost them. Where are all of my emails?"

Looking at the news feed on welcome page of my companies desktop software was a headline, something about the Mars Rover launch.

"Well, it's possible you deleted them, but have you heard about the Mars Rover? The one that's on the way to Mars as we speak?"

"Yeah"

"Well don't tell anyone, but NASA thinks that there may be some lost emails there, so while the rover is there they are going to look for them."

"Really?"

"Yes, but don't get your hopes up. If they don't find them up there it will be okay. I'm sure your husb. er. dog won't change your password again. Okay?"

This seemed to actually help. She spoke up with an air of new-found confidence and said:

"Okay. Thank you. Now I can go deal with this damn neighbor. I've already called the police, the FBI, and The President, but they won't talk to me no more because the fence is on their property line. I'm gonna have to fix it myself."

"Okay, Shirley. Have a good night."

That was the last we heard from Shirley that night.