You dial into my cell phone, from an “Anonymous” caller-ID, demanding “Joseph” – in a language that I am unlikely to be called in at this time and to this number, anyway. I tell you there is no Joseph here. You demand to know who this is. I ask who are you and you claim I know who. I tell you I’m sorry, you got the wrong number and you then demand that I should know who the hell is “Joseph” and where he is. I tell you once again you are wrong and you tell me I’m lying. Lather, Rinse, Repeat, until I realize I can do what I should have done 15 seconds after picking up the call and cut you off. All through this, the word “motherfucker” is apparently used to signify the places in your speech where a comma or period would go if written down. Look, be a darling for me, motherfucker, and when you finally meet “Joseph”, tell the motherfucker I said to beat his motherfucking head in with a lead pipe for giving away random phone numbers to motherfuckers whose calls he wants to avoid.
… And I won’t mention the chick who called me on the phone number no stranger is supposed to know (also from “parts unknown”), claiming initially a wrong number, but then changing her story to be some sort of secret admirer, and to prove it gave a description of my comings and goings and circumstances… that scared the living crap out of me. I am so NOT turned on by stalkers, I so do NOT find stalking romantic. Honey, from your description of events, you must have had hundreds of opportunities for two years to jut step up and say “Hi there, hot stuff!” or whatever. I already AM one too many mental cases under the same roof…
I have a commercial phone number at home (one that ends in 3 zeros). 50% of the calls I get are the wrong number. I tried to be nice at the beginning, now I just say “wrong number” hand hang up. No need to waste my time.
I kept getting calls at all hours (seriously - one day it’d be nine in the morning, the next it’d be late afternoon, then after midnight…) from this guy asking for Erika, and I’d tell him he had the wrong number, and he’d just say “oh” and stay on the line, and then do it AGAIN OVER AND OVER FOR WEEKS.
I changed my answering machine message to “[bitch voice] This is NOT ERIKA. If you are calling for Erika, you have the WRONG NUMBER. DO NOT LEAVE A MESSAGE. DO NOT CALL AGAIN. JUST HANG UP AND GIVE UP ALREADY. [switch to sweet happy voice] If you DO know who this is, and you’d like to leave a message that’s actually for me, go right ahead! [beep]”
He left a message. “Erika, this is whatever, call me back.”
ARGH
If he calls again I’m going to tell him that either Erika is dead or that I’m Erika and I hate his guts and wish he were dead.
We used to get a call at least once a week from some woman that would go something like this:
BRIIIIIIING! Me: Hello? Strange Woman: Carmela? (I am a man, and have a fairly deep voice) Me: Sorry, you have the wrong number. Again. SW: ******** (I have no idea what language she was speaking. Might have been Navajo code talk, or Basque) Me: About 9:00, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it to the party. SW:********* Me: Yeah, this isn’t any fun anymore, so I’m haning up. Good luck with that rash. CLICK
A long time ago we were getting phone calls for Tyrone at all hours of the night and early morning. “Tyrone there?”, “No you have the wrong number. CLICK”. This went on for months until finally my husband said, “Yes, I’ll get him” and just set the phone down. That was the last time he called. I don’t know why it worked.
Y’know, one really infuriating part of it is, were I in their shoes and under the impression that Joseph, Erika or Tyrone is giving me the brush-off, why the fuck would I continue to call?
Oh, and I hadn’t mentioned the guy who cold-called me to see if he could ask me out. Dude, are you that desperate you just call random males to see if they swing your way?
My conclusion: these people are on the wrong drugs.
