Kazan — summer 2014

On my phone today I got a notification that my landlady had tried to call me. Weird. My phone hadn't rung at all. A few minutes later I got another one. Perhaps she was pocket dialing? I called her back just in case. I asked whether she had tried to call me. She replied:

Yes, but apparently I had run out of money on my phone, so the phone wouldn't let me actually place the call. I wanted to tell you that one of the neighbors on the second floor in the building had complained that you had clogged their drain. That's not theoretically possible since they live on the other side of the stairwell and the pipe systems on the two sides of the stairwell are not connected. In any case, if any of them try to talk to you, don't say anything.

Weird. This is my fifth summer here, and indeed I remember her previously warning me about the neighbors. Now maybe I see why.

What an interesting phone system the Russians have. If you call someone and their line is busy, you sometimes get a text message when they get off the phone. On this occasion, I got a message just because someone tried to reach me and failed. Glad I responded. Back in the States I mostly ignore my phone. (Not an option here since I'm a group leader...)