(nice)
For the zoomers among you, dialing *69 (in the US; the code was different in other countries allowed you to see who last called you -- i.e., caller ID. (The services weren't exactly the same, but the distinction is pretty trivial these days.)
Remember when the ability to see who called you was a wild new technological development, indistinguishable from magic, advertisable with a stereotypical fortune teller holding a crystal ball above a movie-theater carpet? Remember when this was a gripping lead?
Constance Young uses Caller ID to scope out whether potential boyfriends really did try to phone her. Corey Albright says that using another telephone company service, return call, to find out who called has become a teenage ritual. Alexis Henderson worries that her husband has become obsessed with figuring out who called and hung up.
Bonus: About that last one...
Henderson said her husband uses it to ring hang-up callers and ask, in a not-so-gentle voice, "Why did you call here?"
His habit recently led to something Henderson called a "Star 69 war." Henderson called a colleague on her way out the door. The colleague didn't answer, and Henderson hung up rather than leave a message, then left her house. The colleague, who was home, used return call to call back, and Henderson's husband picked up.
"My husband answers the phone, and {the colleague} says, Who's this?' " Henderson recalled. "And that immediately incensed him, and he said, Well, who's this?' So she hangs up. So he uses star 69 to call her back."