Your Time is Up

The Colonel was a career man; and knowing what would happen within his lifetime promised to be an invaluable asset.... But he had never heard of that ancient legend of Faust....
At first I thought it was just another wrong number. Well, it was, in a sense—but not the kind of wrong number I thought it was. The ringing signal burred against my ear in the usual way, then there was a click, and somebody said, Office of Historical Research. Zon Twenty speaking.
Oh. 'Scuse me, I said. I must have dialed wrong.
That was euphemism—misplaced loyalty, maybe. I didn't dial the wrong number, and I knew it. But high brass had installed a new automatic dialing system in the Pentagon as an economy measure, and it produced so many wrong numbers and entanglements that I think it actually must have cost more money in the long run than the old-fashioned live operator system—but then that shouldn't surprise you if you've ever been connected with the military.
I was about to hang up after my apology. The voice on the other end said: Wait! Did you say— dialed ?
Sure, I said.
Then— and he seemed surprised, if not downright startled— what kind of a phone are you speaking from?
Huh? I said. What kind? The regular kind. Phone, desk, dial, M-1—or whatever the Army calls it.
This time his voice went off like a small bomb. The Army ? he said.
Sure, I said. What's the matter with the Army?
And thought: Navy or Air Force type, no doubt. Our allies. Have to put up with them in the Pentagon. Have to put up with a lot of things—even being Colonel Lawrence Boggs didn't save you from a snafu dialling system. I thought: somebody is out to needle armchair colonels this week. I'll play around with it for a while, maybe find out who's got the sense of humor.
The voice said, Look here, are you joking with me?