Re:Improbable (Score 1)

A while ago (think generation), some oil company got a bright idea. They thought, why don't we equip all our customers' oil tanks with phones, so that when the tank runs low, the tank will call to be filled? Great idea! It ran well for a while, then the oil company ran out of business.

Twenty years pass.

Some lady randomly starts getting these prank callers. Every hour, on the hour, her phone rings, hisses at her, then hangs up. It happens for weeks. She's frantic. Finally, they trace the calls to a nice suburban home whose owners completely deny everything. Then, they find that the old oil tank in their basement, which had been empty for years, had gotten a glitch in the system and was calling the old oil company, asking to be refilled.

Now substitute comething modern for phone number, and some other appliance for oil tank.