Most people don’t look fondly upon crank calls. But Director of the Kei Kai Ola Hospital for Hawaiian monk seals Dr. Claire Simeone says the series of calls she received this week was “One of the best things I’ve experienced all year.”
It started with a single phone call to her cell phone from the hospital. A call she had no idea was made by a gecko.
That call was followed by two more calls.
“I was getting lunch, so I thought maybe someone had a seal-related question. I picked up. Silence,” Simeone wrote on Twitter.
Then her phone started ringing off the hook.
She got five phone calls in 15 minutes and started to become unnerved.
“I start to panic a bit, and drive back to the hospital,” she explains. “Seal emergency? I am on it.”
But when she arrived back at the hospital everything seemed to be in good order.
There was no emergency.
And even stranger, no one had called her. That’s when she got yet another call.
She soon learned that she wasn’t the only one who was getting prank calls from the hospital.
“So I call HawaiianTel to check it out. Phone on the fritz? Meanwhile, several other people call the hospital, asking WHY WE ARE CALLING THEM INCESSANTLY?” Simeone says.
“Very nice HawaiianTel man says it might be an issue with one of our phones, or some of the software. He confirms that, yes, a bazillion calls are coming from one line.”
Simeone then decided to check the phones to see if she could find the problem lines.
She goes on to check several rooms in the hospital without any luck.
Then she gets another call from The Marine Mammal Center.
So, she walks into the laboratory and there it is. The line where the calls are coming from… as well as the culprit.
“THERE IS A GECKO SITTING ON THE TOUCHSCREEN OF THE PHONE. MAKING CALLS WITH HIS TINY GECKO FEET!!! This gecko has called me 15 times, and everyone in our recent call list,” Simeone said.
The man from Hawaiian Telcom said he had never heard of a gecko making crank calls before.
Simeone also had to send out apology notes to staff and volunteers explaining what happened.
“I immediately hired gecko. So, if you received a silent call yesterday from TMMC
#KeKaiOla, you are welcome, and you may mail us your donation check anytime,” Simeone said.
Simeone posted her story in a series of tweets with hilarious gifs. And, of course, a story like this obviously went viral. You can see Simeone’s full thread below.
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
You are not going to BELIEVE this story. It’s one of the best things I’ve experienced this year. Hold on tight for this roller coaster. pic.twitter.com/R0SfmgS0bn
— Dr. Claire Simeone (@Claire_Simeone) October 5, 2018
