Gecko butt-dials ‘bazillion’ times from Hawaii
Tiny lizard caught in laboratory of marine mammal hospital
Veterinarian and seal expert Claire Simeone was just about to enjoy her lunch when her cellphone rang.
Work was calling and, as director of the Marine Mammal Center’s Ke Kai Ola Hawaiian Monk Seal Hospital in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, Simeone picked up immediately.
“As a veterinarian, I’m really on call for any type of questions or emergencies that come through,” she told The Washington Post, noting that the hospital is administering care to four endangered Hawaiian monk seals.
But when Simeone answered her phone Wednesday, she was met with complete silence. No breathing, not even static.
In the span of 15 minutes, Simeone’s phone rang nine times, each call from the same number and all eerily silent.
“The first thing I thought was that there was some kind of an emergency … ,” she said.
In a now-viral Twitter thread, Simeone detailed her hunt for the source of the mysterious calls, delighting thousands with what has been described as “100% the most ‘Hawaii’ story.”
After receiving the barrage of bizarre calls, fearing something had happened to one of the seals, Simeone tweeted, she abandoned her lunch plans and raced back to the hospital.
“More calls,” she tweeted minutes later. “NINE calls in 15 minutes. I start to panic a bit, and drive back to the hospital. Seal emergency? I am on it.”
Arriving at the center and expecting to see staff members in a frenzy, Simeone told The Post, she found everyone outside on the patio eating their lunches, completely calm.
“I was like, ‘Guys, what’s up? What’s wrong?’” she said, telling her staff she had just gotten a handful of calls from them. “They said, ‘Well, nobody’s inside.’ ”
Then, Simeone said, her phone rang again. The call was definitely coming from inside the hospital.
Soon, other people started calling the hospital wondering why they were being called “incessantly,” Simeone wrote on Twitter.
“Very nice @HawaiianTelman 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. … He asks me to look around to find the problem line.”
Finally, Simeone entered the hospital’s laboratory, and there it was — the phone responsible for all the calls.
“THERE IS A GECKO SITTING ON THE TOUCHSCREEN OF THE PHONE, MAKING CALLS WITH HIS TINY GECKO FEET!!!” she tweeted. She posted a picture of the gecko on her phone, captioning it “*Actual photo of telemarketer*”
The mischievous critter scampered away, turning on the landline’s speakerphone in the process, Simeone said.
The wily interloper wasn’t done with the games just yet.
Simeone said she got another call and went back into the lab to find the gecko once again perched on the touch screen. This time, she said, she managed to catch the gecko and return it outside.
“He is all good,” Simeone said with a laugh.