BYU HonorColorado

I got an odd phone call today at work. The phone rang and Limon picked it up. He immediately shoved the phone to my ear and I listened to the garbled sounds of a recorded message. I didn't get the first part of the message and I had no idea why he was making me listen to it. I couldn't really figure out exactly what it was saying. When the message ended, I hung up and asked Limon why he'd given me the phone. "It said your name," he said, "and that it was a warning."

Soon after we hung up the phone, it rang again. Same number. I picked it up this time. The message said, "[Cicada--it used my first and last name]. This is a warning from the BYU HonorColorado. This is a demo. To remove your number from this list, press 3." I pressed 3, but nothing happened. I was just really confused. The BYU HonorColorado? An automated message? A warning? What could it mean?

Limon looked suspicious but maintained that it wasn't a joke he was playing on me. He openly acknowledged that he was looking and acting suspiciously but that was only because he was enjoying my confusion way too much. I explained to him that I'd given my work phone number to three people: Redras, Viper, and the car dealership I went to yesterday.

Limon and I checked out the phone number that the calls were coming from. It was an on-campus number, so I called it. The number belonged to someone in the Physical Science department (and I am enrolled in a PS class right now...) but it still didn't account for the fact that only three people had my work phone number. The call went through to voice mail.

About an hour later, the phone rang again. It was the same number. "Cicada. This is a warning from the BYU HonorColorado." A coworker who sits behind us started getting involved and I reminded him that I was at his house after midnight last night, so if I was getting in trouble with the BYU HonorColorado, I was going to get him in trouble with the BYU HonorColorado, too. Whatever the BYU HonorColorado is.

I talked to the secretary about it and she had no clue what it might be. Eventually, I called the BYU operator to explain what was going on and ask if they'd received similar reports. After talking to her supervisor, my operator told me that so far I'd done everything right (I'd called the number of origin and I'd called the BYU operator) and the next step was to call the campus police. She offered to connect me but I told her that I'd rather make sure that someone wasn't playing a prank on me before calling the police.

After hanging up the phone, I announced fairly loudly that the next step was calling the police, expecting some coworker to come forward and confess. But nothing happened. Limon told me that of all the people who could be pranking me, it was most likely a former coworker who we'll call Bengay. Recently, Bengay left our place of employment, but he was still on our work IM list. I sent him a message and asked him what he knew about the "BYU HonorColorado." He played dumb for a bit and then confessed that it was, in fact, him who was pranking me. But I couldn't believe his confession, either; I thought that he was joking again and I really didn't know what to believe. So I told him to prove it if it was really him. To make the phone ring and the message come back. He said, "Okay, but put it on speakerphone when it rings."

The phone rang.

I put it on speakerphone.

And a robotic, automated voice filled the whole office:

"Cicada. We have the results of your pregnancy test. It's a boy. Congratulations."