"Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain"

-Friedrich von Schiller

And boy, was HE ever right. Our phone went out this past weekend. Normally no big deal, but we had kinda hoped to do some online stuff, and if the phone's out, the DSL is out, so I called Verizon's 24-hour line.
It's now an automated line, which quite frankly I like infinitely better than the human-staffed line. For one thing, I don't have to wait on the phone for an hour for a live person to answer, just to get the same questions the automated line asked me. For another, the automated line doesn't get snotty with me and ask me stupid things like "if your phone is out, then how are you calling us to report a problem?"
The fact that it's an automated line is very important. Remember that fact.

It asked the usual things, phone number (with area code), what kind of problem am I reporting, etc. Then I got the following two questions:
"Does the phone have a dial tone at all?" No.
"I know this is highly unlikely, but are you placing this call from that phone?" Um. What?

Really, it did say "I know this is highly unlikely".
I think my brain just melted.
I mean, really, think about that.

They know that you're not gonna be able to call the phone company if your phone doesn't work at all, especially to the extent of "no dial tone". And yet...apparently there are enough incredibly stupid people that will place calls to the phone company, reporting no service on their phone, and no DIAL TONE on their phone, and will do so using the phone that is supposedly out of service, that the phone company needs to program that question into their automated helpline.

I weep for humanity.