Sometimes the space-time continuum gets messed up. This morning, I got a call from the future.
The phone rang, and I answered, and a young man said “Hi Grandpa! Good morning!”
I said “You have the wrong number”
And he said “Oh, Grandpa, it’s me! You just don’t remember.”
I said “I don’t have any grandchildren!”
He said “You do! You’re my Grandpa Joe, this is-” and then it cut off.
My first name is Joe.
I don’t have any grandchildren. But I guess one day, years from now, my future grandson will say “Grandpa, I called you this morning and you didn’t remember me!”
And I’ll say “I didn’t get any calls this morning!”
But in a way, I feel kind of good, knowing that one day I’m going to have a nice young grandson who will call me just to say good morning.
On January 1, 2000, my family and I were in Taiwan and we called a friend in Houston who was still in Dec-31, 1999, who promptly chuckled about how we were calling from different millleniums.
Could be a scammer. “Grampa Joe! I’m stuck in a Tiajuana jail and I need bail money!” If he calls enough people named “Joe” he’ll get one with bad memory and/or a shit-ton of grandchildren.
Then you chuckled inaccurately, you were not in two different millennia. The new millennium didn’t start until January 1, 2001. There was no year 0 in the currently accepted calendar. [/annoying pedant]
I got a voicemail once- an Australian accented voice saying “[My first and last name], ya mahthahfackah! How the hail ah ya?” He went on to say he was in town on a visit and looked me up, and to give him a call back. It was really strange because he sounded like he knew me well but I had no idea who he was. So I called the hotel number that he left, and it turned out he used to work with a guy with the same name as me. I had a hard time convincing him I was not the guy he used to know, because he said I sounded exactly like him.
Another time I called a guy from high school I didn’t really know for some reason I forget, and when someone answered I asked for Tim. They said hold on, and when ‘Tim’ answered it wasn’t the Tim I was trying to reach- I got the number wrong and called a house with another Tim.
So, it happens. But just in case, if he calls back, ask him for stock tips.
Nope - it’s a popular new scam, calling the “grandparents” and saying you’re in trouble somewhere “but please don’t tell Mom and Dad!!”.
My MIL phoned me once and said “Where is your son?”.
I misheard and thought she said “where is MY son” (i.e. my husband) and I said “he’s downstairs”.
“Oh good!. I just got a call claiming to be my grandson…”.
As it turns out, “he” was not downstairs, but he was definitely not where the scammer claimed to be calling from. The claimed location was not completely implausible, however - a state not too far away, which we visit frequently, and where I was born and raised. Luckily MIL was on the ball about that one.
The call clearly did not come from the past because the OP would have known if he had a grandson in the past. He’d also know if he had a grandson in the present. That leaves only the future as the source of the call.
I got one of those (via email) purporting to be from a good friend who was stranded in some shit-hole country and just needed a quick loan for a plane ticket back home.
It was amusing because I’ve known this guy my whole adult life and absolutely everything being claimed was totally out of character for him – it was a hilariously incompetent scam in every way imaginable. The thing that makes scammers generally easy to identify is that they’re usually ignorant low-life bums who imagine that everyone’s life is just like theirs.
