Method_missing seems to be...well, missing.

I can't figure this out for the life of me...

The code below is for a simple logger class I wrote to go along with a personal project. To avoid having to write a ton of code I overrode method_missing thereby allowing calls like "logger_instance.emergency('emergency error text')".

For whatever reason, when method_missing-based calls are made, nothing happens. The code doesn't hang or crash, it just seems to skip right over the logging code and return. No errors are thrown that I can see, and it's really starting to bother me. Ideas?

class Utility::Log

  LOG_FILE = './operator_log.txt'

  def initialize
  end

  def method_missing(level, *mesg)
    log(mesg[0], level.capitalize)
  end

  def log(mesg, level = 'NOTICE')
    _new
    @logger.write(Time.now + "::#{level}::" + mesg + "\n")
    _close
  end

  private

  def _new
    if File.file?(LOG_FILE)
      @logger = File.open(LOG_FILE, 'a')
    end
  end

  def _close
    @logger.close
  end

end