You’ve gotta love it! I signed up for PrivatePhone through Netzero a few months ago. It’s a private voicemail service that provides a local number that you can give out to friends, associates, business partners, enemies - you know - people you don’t want to give your REAL phone number to.

Anyway, I just got a voice announcement by e-mail from PrivatePhone about a new service they are offering and they’ve just put a new twist on being sneaky. You know how when you’re on a bad date and you just really want to leave and you sneak into the restroom and call or text a message to a friend that says “Help! I’m on the Date from Hell and I need you to call me right now and act like it’s an emergency so that I can leave!” or something like that?

Well, now PrivatePhone will do it for you. They’ve got a new service called GottaGo Call that you can schedule to call your cell phone to ask you if you want to leave. Schedule it for, say, an hour into your date and if the date is a disaster, take your GottaGo Call and tell the turkey you have an emergency and have to leave … “I’ll call you.”

Is it just me or don’t you think this is just a bit too much? I don’t know about you, but this pretty much does it for the ritual of dating. You can’t even trust your date’s cell phone, much less the date, anymore!

Of course, GottaGo Call can be used for lots of other bad experiences as well - meetings, family reunions, prostate exams - anything you can schedule it for. No telling what mischief this thing can get into.

Oh, well, GottaGo!