As I write this post, I am filled with righteous indignation. My body quivers with outrage. Rather, it wobbles in outrage. The way jello wobbles when poked. Perhaps I exaggerate about my mental state, but I am surely somewhere between simply annoyed and quite vexed. Now that I have described the properties of soft cuddly objects sufficiently, we shall continue with the tale.
On Tuesday afternoon my mother calls me and informs me that I am to make my presence felt at – at this point my brain goes into hyperdrive mode and comes up with suggestions (much like Google Suggest) like ‘a wedding’, ‘a relatives abode’, ‘a hotel’ but sadly no takers – THE POLICE STATION. The only way I would have been more surprised is if she’d told me to attend a gym. It turns out that a policeman had dropped off a summons at the house saying that I was cordially invited to an inquiry at the Ragama Police station on Wednesday, RSVPers get warranted. Not having committed any criminal activity apart from jaywalking in a long time, I was suitably confused as to why they would require my august presence at this inquiry.
The next day, filled with confusion and a tiny bit of dread (this _is_ Sri Lanka after all, justice sometimes sits it out) I made my way to the police station with one of my best friends tagging along. I haven’t even been to Ragama in years and didn’t even know anyone from the area, so I had no clue as to what awaited. After arriving at the station, I show a policeman in a separate room my letter and tell him I’ve come as requested, but I’ve no idea what’s going on. He asks me to wait and sends a minion to dig up the charge against me. What’s interesting is that there are lots of people about even though it’s a poya day. Most of the complaints revolve around ‘I cannot live with this man/woman/parents’ or ‘I cannot sleep because this man/woman/person makes a lot of disturbance in the night’. I was starting to dread whether I had suddenly slipped into a parallel universe where I was married and separated from my wife (who would naturally be really hot, smart and raven haired not to mention funny).
In due course the WPC returns with the complaint, and it turns out that I’ve been making death threats against someone! Suffice to say, this is all news to me. Now this is the real kicker, when I ask for the number, it turns out to be a SIM registered to me but used by my friend a while ago! The number isn’t even in active use anymore. After sharing a telepathic moment where we discussed our next move, we got the number of the person who placed the complaint. Not so that we can call and actually threaten the person, more so we could find out who the hell I was supposed to have threatened! After informing the police officer that the SIM is not in active use and that I will disconnect it immediately, I go to record a statement. And there we find our next clue! Next to the complaint by the complainant is my friend’s actual number as well! So this complaint was apparently against my friend!
The complainant having given the police two ‘anonymous’ numbers, the police call Mobitel up and request for a name and address (since all numbers are now tied to the NIC). After having gotten the address of only one number, the police hi five themselves on a good day’s work and go home. At least that’s what I can surmise from all of this because it’s incomprehensible to me that they only investigated one (random) number. So anyway, things become much clearer to us.
The other policeman (I think he’s a second in command or something) then gives me a lecture on how smart they are and how I shouldn’t make death threats because it can all be traced now. I would have liked to say ‘no shit Sherlock’, but I am quite attached to my freedom of movement. And all this in front of Mrs-I-Can’t-Live-With-My-Husband and Ms-My-Neighbor-Makes-Too-Much-Noise-In-The-Night and a myriad other people. And since I’m bigger than any three people in that room combined plus an unruly beard, I look the part as well. And the most insulting part in that whole episode was him thinking I’m some kind of idiot to have committed a crime with a big fucking finger pointing right back at me. I’m not even the type of person to actually threaten anyone with death! I have, on several occasions, willed fire to burst forth from my fingers but the aim has always been to singe rather than burn to death. And no, it’s never worked. They didn’t even get a warm feeling.
If I _did_ want to threaten someone with say a gruesome chocolate covered death (admit it, you’d rather die covered in chocolate than without), I would have used Google voice or some other VoIP provider with a clean account. At the very least I’d have used a public pay phone! I’d like to see Mr-Second-In-Command tell me how smart he was tracing a call through one of Google’s datacenters and routed through several telcos that ends up with an IP in bloody Tanzania because I used Tor.
Also, I’d like to point out that during the whole time nobody actually cared whether I’d made the call or not. No one checked phone records, the complainant didn’t come forward and I was simply assumed to have been a miscreant.
Yes, so. My outrage has suitably been vented. I quiver like jelly no more.
After leaving the police station we head to Mobitel head office to get the detailed bill for my number to ascertain the veracity of this complaint. Can’t really trust the police to actually check whether I had called this number before summoning me, no, that would be more like real detective work and we all know the boys in khaki don’t detect stuff. Once we go through my call records for the past three months, that number doesn’t even show up, so my number shouldn’t have even been on the list. Tomorrow, my friend will get his call records and we’ll be looking at that as well. My friend maintains that he hasn’t threatened anyone and although he does some really stupid stuff when he’s drunk (we all do!), I for one believe him.
So we wait on confirmation for my friend’s call log and if it comes up negatively, it proves that someone out there is out to hassle my friend and I was collateral damage! Possibly we’ll be able to get Mr-Second-In-Command to take a closer look at the complainant and reverse the tables and do some actual detecting, instead of sitting in his chair and making snarky comments. Apologies if this played out like a Hardy Boys mystery!
