Or maybe I am Michael and keep fogetting! :eek:
I felt sort of sorry for the poor guy who left a rambling, hey-we-met-at-so and so’s-last-night on my machine. He wanted to know if "um, like, we could get together and maybe have a beer or something? " I wonder if the girl he actually met gave out a phony phone number and it ended up being mine.
On a more alarming note, I let the machine pick up once when I was home and heard lots of shouting from multiple people, along with “Bitch! You calling the police, aint’cha?” I did use the caller ID on that one and phoned it in to our local non-emergency number so they could check it out.
We often get calls for the INS at work. Fortunately, we have a few folks who speak Spanish (the primary language the INS callers speak) who can get on the phone and let them know they’ve got the wrong number.
I leave a message if I get a wrong number because hangups on my machine bug me.
Right now I have a message saved on my cell phone that is in some strange language. It’s sounds kind of Arabic but I really don’t know.
In the phone book, we’re listed right after a minister of the same name. He is listed as Z. Kree and we are listed as Zah and DeVena Kree. And we get the world’s saddest messages. “Please come to the hospital, we don’t think Mama has long now”… “Please counsel my husband, he only hits me when he drinks”… “Little Jimmy is talking a lot about suicide”… “Pastor Kree, we have a woman in the ER who is incoherent but is asking for you”…
We call the minister and pass on the info, but a lot of the time they don’t leave phone numbers. I guess it must be a small church.
At one point when we had just moved to Denmark, this old woman began calling us. She would ask for Lars continuously. Of course, having just moved from England and having no idea how to speak Danish, we just ignored her. After about 3 or 4 months, the woman still kept calling. By this time I had picked up some Danish, and asked her why she kept calling. Apparently, Lars used to live there, but had mysteriously stopped calling her. So I asked the landlord, and turns out Lars was DEAD. I felt so awful, I was the one who had to tell her. Fortunately, she took it a lot better than I thought.
Wow, that’s like the telephone equivalent of dumpster diving. Have you tried it out yet?
I got a new phone number a couple years ago. Apperently it used to belong to a mortgage company. I have a message on the answering machine which specifically states that the number no longer belongs to them. I even changed it to ask anyone interested in talking to them NOT to call back. Despite this, I still get about 10-15 calls a month looking for this company. I have had messages left with account numbers.
And every now and then, I get the sound of my daughters voice saying “He said not to call back…” I’m going to have to take that part off of the message. 
I have a Mp3 of a genuine answer machine tape. There are three phone calls. The first two messages are from an extremely irate woman over a matter of some money. A number of very creative insults are given and various colourful and violent threats are issued, including heavy beatings and arson.
The third message is the same woman sounding completely mortified and contrite, apologising for the previous calls, as she had the wrong number.
It’s very, very funny.
It’s also a bit scary, this is not a woman to cross.
**“Hey Jeff - what the hell is your obituary doing in the paper? Call me on my cell phone…” **
She then calls someone else to check on this Jeff … sounds like it’s a different guy, same name, same age, lives in the same part of the county. :eek:
I can’t believe I didn’t think of this. I hope someone else has not already posted it. This is a very funny set of answering machine messages. Her mother routinely calls and leaves funny messages. She has put them into her commedy act.
I used to regularly get an voicemail from a woman saying “This is Grandma, stop by and help us <whatever>.” She never left a message and *69 didn’t work. I felt so bad thinking this old woman was looking for help from her grandson and getting no response. Finally I change my answering machine to say “Hi this is Khadaji, I’m not home. If this is the woman identifying herself as Grandma, know that you have a wrong number, my Grandma passed a few years ago. All others leave a message.” I never heard from Grandma again.
I already told the story of the guy telling his wife he’d be late home elsewhere …
When I was babysitting one evening when the phone rang and I answered and a man says “Hello honey (mumble mumble)” I said “Pardon?” he says “Sandra?” I says “no she’s not here, I’m the babysitter, can I take a message?” There was a hhheeeeeee silence, then click I neve did tell the woman (who’s name was Sandra) that anyone phoned …
When we first moved into the current residence we’d get fax machines calling us every morning. Turns out the local bank’s fax number (instead of being the same as their phone number) was the same as our phone number. One morning, phone rings, I pick up get the screech … beep I was about to hang up when I heard a somewhat angry woman saying “why doesn’t that *ucking bank’s *ucking fax ever *ucking work!!!” I said “because this is a house phone number and not the AIB’s fax number”. There was a hhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeee silence, then the woman (attempting to pretend I hadn’t heard her cursing the place out) politely asked if I was the AIB, I told her I wasn’t, and she thanked me before hanging up.
Just after New Years I kept getting missed calls on my mobile (cell phone) a land line in Dublin. None of my Dublin mates have my mobile number, and I didn’t recognise the other number. The one day mobile starts singing (I love polyphonic ring tones) and it’s this Dublin number, I answers and a woman says “is that Michael?” "I tells her she’s got the wrong number … 3 more times I’ve answered my mobile to this woman asking for Michael, I gve up being polite and said “do I sound like a Michael?”. I assume she met Michael at a Christmas or New Year’s party and he gave her a mobile number, and either he thought/hoped it was a fake one or she’s been dialling 087 XXXXXXX instead of 086 XXXXXXX
I used to get lots of odd messages. My father and I have the same name. His number is unlisted. Mine wasn’t then (it is now). He’s a judge in a big city. He’s locked up (as well as freed) lots and lots of people. Occasionally he has a high-profile trial going on with lots of press coverage. When that happens, my phone would ring off the hook. Death threats, demands that the accused be tortured and killed, etc., etc. I worried about it for a while, because my address was listed along with the phone number, but I never got any in-person visits.
Then I moved. Got a new (unpublished) number. No more calls.