Butt-Dial

I never heard of this word until last week.

 

(Image Courtesy: Dreamstime.com)

 

Butt-Dial means accidentally dial someone’s phone number while sitting on your phone. It happens when you are sitting down while your cell phone is in your pant’s back pocket. It is also known as pocket dial. It usually dials any of the last 3 numbers you have dialed.

 

When this dialing happens, the receiver can hear all the conversations you are having with someone else in the room. If you are not talking to someone, the receiver will be wondering why you dialed him/her and did not speak.

 

Side Note: Last week, President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Guiliani’s cell phone butt dialed an NBC News Reporter. At that time, Mr. Guiliani was speaking to someone else, someone in the same room. This reporter heard the whole conversation and published the entire conversation. I think this is unethical.

Chutzpah

Chutzpah (pronounced Hootspa) is a Jewish word meaning audacity or nerve.

 

I checked the Dictionary.com for the meaning of audacity. It gives the following:

 

Boldness or daring, especially with confident or arrogant disregard for personal safety, conventional thought, or other restriction.

 

Here is a true story. This is not any movie scene.

 

Amrullah Saleh was a Spy Chief for the Afghanistan Government. He is now running for the Vice President of his country as a running mate for the current Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. As a Spy Chief, he made lot of enemies including the Taliban. He killed lot of enemies. To a US television network he said: “And if they kill me, I have told my family and my friends not to complain about anything because I have killed many of them – with pride”.

 

In July of this year, his office was attacked and many of his bodyguards were either killed or wounded. He just escaped. He later visited the wounded bodyguards in a hospital. In the hospital, a relative of a dead bodyguard slapped Amrullah Saleh. His own security came to protect him. He asked his bodyguards to step back. Amrullah told the dead bodyguard’s relative to hit him more. And, he hit him again.

 

Amrullah Saleh asked the grieving relative whether his own death would have eased his pain. The man said “yes”. Amrullah Saleh then pulled his handgun, loaded it, and gave it to the man to shoot him. The relative took the gun, aimed at Amrullah Saleh, and after a few seconds returned the gun to Amrullah Saleh saying he could not shoot him.

 

During these few seconds, Amrullah Saleh looked at the man straight in his eyes and no fear in his face.

 

I would call this Chutzpah. Real life incident. Not a movie scene.

Strange But A True Story

Her name was Sivasli. She was 41 years old. Teacher. She fell in love with a married man. After a few years, he left her. Sivasli could not bear the loss of her lover. She was dejected. She wanted to commit suicide.

 

But she did not have the guts to commit suicide. She thought about how to end her life. Then she had a "brilliant" idea. She hired a “hit man” to kill her. Contacted the hit man. Money was negotiated. Sivasli paid him the full amount to kill her.

 

The first time the hit man saw Sivasli, he fell in love with her. Her beauty, her charm, her grace—all affected his mind. He did not want to kill her. He pleaded with her not to take her life. He told her he is in love with her and would take care of her. But Sivasli was firm in her mind to die.

 

One day, she pressured him to kill her. One time the hit man tried to strangle her. But couldn’t do it when she started turning red.

 

Then she bought a gun and gave it to him to kill her. When they met one night, she told him “if you really love me, please kill me.” He put a pillow on her face and shot her twice on the pillow. He thought she would not die. Called the emergency line and fled the scene.

 

Police and ambulance came. Unfortunately, she died while paramedics were trying to save her when they got to her house.

 

She died in Istanbul on April 21.

 

PS:  While I feel really sorry for Sivasli, this would make a good story for the Indian movies.   They would change the ending as if they happily lived ever after.