You asked for it, you got it:
Once upon a time, many many years ago when I was in a fraternity and dinosaurs roamed the earth, it was typical for underclassmen to be responsible for answering the phone or answering the doorbell. So if there was a group of underclassmen in the first floor lounge when the phone rang, the newest pledge had to go answer it and find the intended recipient or take a message. Likewise, underclassmen were responsible for answering the front door when the doorbell rang.
And also in this fraternity, there was an officer elected each semester -- the Vice President -- whose job it was to make sure that everything was working as it should and that others were assigned to fix things when they were broken.
So this VP, Gene, one day got a complaint that the doorbell was not working.
Gene was surprised to hear that the doorbell had stopped working; he did not recall ever hearing that the doorbell had failed to work before. So Gene went down to the basement just past the kitchen to where the workshop was, turned on the lights and went down the steps to the narrow workshop, located almost directly under the building's front steps, climbed on top of a bench and looked at the doorbell controller.
The doorbell controller was this simple, utilitarian homemade device, probably built in the sixties by one of the brothers back then. It was built like a tank; it consisted of a transformer and a relay, mounted on a sheet metal case, with screw terminals for the wires that connected to the front door button and the wires to the ding-dong chime unit in the first floor hallway, and an AC cord that plugged into an outlet. Simple and effective. Not much that could fail. The controller lived in the basement workshop where it had sat untouched for at least twenty years, aside from having been moved to a specially built shelf -- so it was even more out of the way than it had been previously -- during the last time the basement workshop had been reorganized. The doorbell controller had worked flawlessly all those years as far as anyone could recall.
Gene checked out the controller, and it seemed to be in order. Everything was plugged in as it should be, nothing was disturbed. Gene was able to short the terminals for the front door button, see the relay click on and hear the chime upstairs on the first floor. He went up the stairs to the first floor and went outside to verify that the doorbell button was working and that he could hear the bell. He could. Gene chalked up the complaint to a lazy upperclassman not pressing the doorbell button hard enough.
About a week later, Gene was told again that the doorbell was not working. He went down to the basement again -- same story: everything worked. Gene asked around, finding other cases of brothers complaining that no one had answered the door when they had rung the bell, despite the first floor lounge being full of underclassmen. When pressed, the underclassman claimed that no one had heard the doorbell. Gene began to suspect that certain brothers may have been the butt of a practical joke by some of the underclassmen.
More complaints about the doorbell; every time Gene goes to the basement and checks it is working fine. He watches the controller as others ring the doorbell outside. He considers replacing the button or the chime unit, but he cannot find anything wrong with either of them when he tests them independently or together.
The complaints continue without any apparent pattern. Gene begins to suspect that he is the butt of a elaborate practical joke. The doorbell works fine for two weeks straight. And then another complaint; the doorbell works when Gene checks it.
One day Gene is coming back from class, about to walk through the front door, and he decides to check the doorbell on the way by. He presses the button -- nothing. He tries again: no bell. He races down to the basement to check the controller: it is working just fine, as always. He shorts the button terminals: "Ding dong". Goes back upstairs and tries the front door button: it works.
Gene is convinced that someone in the house is messing with him. He makes it a habit to check the doorbell every day at random times. He hangs around the kitchen, waiting to see if anyone goes into the basement workshop. A few folks do go in the workshop, but none go near the doorbell controller. Gene begins checking the doorbell multiple times per day. He starts keeping track of which underclassmen are in the lounge, and which actually answer the door when he rings the bell. The complaints subside. The doorbell continues to work. Gene is losing sleep over the doorbell situation. Gene has never seen the doorbell controller not work. Every time he looks at the controller, it works. The controller only fails when he is not looking at it. Gene considers moving his bed to the basement. Apparently observing the controller affects the outcome of a test, like a quantum mechanics thought experiment.
Finally, on a hunch, Gene has someone outside ring the doorbell continuously while he goes to the basement workshop. Gene hears the doorbell ringing, then turns out the basement workshop light. The doorbell stops ringing. He turns the light back on, the doorbell starts ringing again.
Eventually Gene was able to piece together the full story. When the basement workshop was reorganized, the doorbell controller had been moved and wound up getting plugged in to a different AC outlet; and the new outlet, as it turned out, was controlled by the light switch in the workshop, unlike the old outlet. So the doorbell controller stopped working when the basement workshop lights were turned off, which was very seldom. Every time Gene went to check the controller after a complaint, the first thing he did was turn on the lights, ensuring that the controller got power again, and would work. At least until the next time someone turned out the lights in the workshop.
Next time on fraternity stories: The underclassman are almost prevented from sawing a desk in half because it won't fit through the door.
