a very strange and true story

First some background:

I am familiar with sound and sound reproduction. For a half century I have worked professionally in close relation to sound studios and on sets.

Pronto is how you say hello on the phone when speaking Italian.

With that established, here is the story.

At the port of Maratea, Italy four adults stood with two children playing on the sand at the water’s edge.

Mario got a call on his cell phone. I am two feet in front of him, M. is three feet off to one side and his wife, Yoko is a few feet away on the other side. He networks to get his tourist boat business going. It’s eleven A.M. on a Monday and we stopped to see the port before going off to lunch.

After a minute or so his call finishes abruptly - he lost connection. After failing to reconnect and after examining his phone he asks me to call his number.

I pull out my cell phone and dial his number. It rings one and a half times and I hear his voice on the phone say “Pronto”. Less than two second later, with him standing in front of me, I see and hear him say into his phone, “Pronto”.

I hang up my phone. What happened? What kind of strange time warp was this? It took my brain maybe a quarter of a second to realize that what happened was wrong. I heard his phone ring, heard his voice on my phone say “Pronto” and then saw him standing two feet in front of me and say “Pronto”. His voice on the phone got to me before he opend his mouth standing next to me said the word.

How did his voice on the phone get to me before I watched him say it? There is no doubt in my mind about the events. I was immediately aware at the time that the sequence was out of order.

How when he was standing two feet in front of me, facing me, did he speak to me on the phone before i watched say a word into his phone?

There you have it. A lot of odd comments can be made, like I should have asked the voice on the phone what the winning lotto numbers are, but the fact remains: it happened as I said. Now I am thinking that I shoul havfe stayed on the phone to see how a conversation would have gone. I was stunned, that's my only excuse.