I'd wonder how 8bit got my phone number, haha. The humor for me comes from the fact that it's a phone call. Plus it's not all bad, if melancholy: Gray's second place showing in the race to lay claim to the invention of the telephone did not tarnish his professional reputation however. In 1880 he was named professor of dynamic electricity at Oberlin College in Ohio, where he taught with distinction. Gray died in Newtonville, Massachusetts, in 1901. Discovered among his belongings was a note indicating a lingering disappointment concerning the telephone. It read, in part, "The history of the telephone will never be fully written.... It is partly hidden away ... and partly lying on the hearts and consciences of a few whose lips are sealed -- some in death and others by a golden clasp whose grip is even tighter."