Reverse 911

Lexington has joined the ranks of towns that use a "reverse 911" calling system; we seem to be getting these calls on a regular basis now.  For a while only Amy's work phone would ring, but now what happens is that both the home phone and Amy's work phone ring at exactly the same time, and we get a recorded message from the town administration.

This last week we had a big kerfuffle as a result of a broken water main out in Weston; many towns in the Boston area (including Lexington) had to switch to backup water supplies, meaning that we had to boil all our drinking water for a while. Each day this week has included a new "reverse 911" call with a message telling us to "keep boiling your water".  All of the recordings feature a tired-sounding male voice and end with a rather surly directive: "Do not return this call". I detest machine-generated phone calls, but I suppose we will just have to put up with the R911 stuff (as a consolation, I suppose the surly guy is less annoying than the artifically perky/happy voices you hear when you dial a large corporation help line these days).