(Slight hijack)
My mother caused one of these mystery calls one day when I was a little kid.
She was calling her mom, my grandmother, and she messed up the area code and got some lady in Oklahoma, a stranger in a completely wrong state.
My mom and the lady, once they realized their mistake started chatting a little and they talked for 15 minutes.
Needless to say my dad was puzzled when the phone bill showed up.
I once lived in digs whose phone number was very similar to the local pizza delivery place…
…of course we took orders! Only occasionally though, we usually informed them of their mistake (didn’t bother giving them the proper number though - that usually made us wait longer when we popped round to pick up our order).
PT
A kid who worked for me years ago had a phone number that was very close to the game line of a local radio station. He was always getting calls from people asking “Am I the 5th caller?” and similar things. He started telling them “Yeah, and you won concert tickets/a gift certificate/a car/whatever” and telling them to come to the station to pick it up. The radio station must have figured it out and changed their number because the calls eventually tapered off.
We had a number once that was one digit different from a pizza place, but we just gave callers the correct number. Don’t mess with a person’s pizza needs, man!
I came home to my college dorm a few years ago to hear a message saying “Hey Velma, it’s Dan…I was just thinking of the time we spent at the beach last summer, and I wondered if maybe you wanted to get together. Call me.”
Sounds great, Dan! Um, I don’t know who you are. I never spent any time with you at the beach.
He sounded nice, though. I would’ve called him back if he had left a number. I hope he didn’t feel too rejected.
Good thing my boyfriend wasn’t there when I played that one! “I swear, I have no idea who this is! It was a wrong number!” Yeah, right.
Mental note: sometimes this excuse is true.
My parents have a phone number -very- similar to a local pizza place, and we had someone call back over and over trying to order a pizza. Then her husband called and started getting nasty.
I should have taken the order and charged them in foreign currency.
I don’t get any wierd calls. But I’ve definatly caused a few 
I answer my phone one of several ways.
When I’m in a bad mood, want to mess with someone’s head or I’ve answered the phone more than 3 times in an hour I use one of several responses.
<Normal voice> “Satan’s House of Puddin’, now with 3 fantastically evil flavors. How do YOU want your puddin’?”
or
<Bored, tired sounding voice. Like someone who hates his job and know’s it wil never end.> “Wanda’s Whip Emporium, your place for all of your bondage and domination needs. This is Wanda, how can I punish you?”
Or
“Do you have it yet! You have half an hour to bring the material to the drop point or we kill the hostages.” <Click>
This happened years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I used to work for a Medical Supply store that catered to Physical and Occupatioanal Thereapist and Doctors. So we sold medical devices like traction equipment and similar. So one day I get this call:
Me: Middle of the Alphabet Medical Supply
Caller (A sixtyish man): I need to order some Oxygen.
Me: I’m sorry sir we don’t carry oxygen.
Caller: Why not?
Me: Gives discription of business
Caller: Well I think it’s stupid you don’t carry oxygen
Me: Sorry you feel that way…
Caller: Who should I call?
Me: I’m not sure, but maybe…
Caller: Wait a minute, you don’t know who your competitors are?
Me: Well if they sell oxygen, they wouldn’t be a competitor
Caller: Bullshit, you should be able to tell me who to call
Me: Well I was about to suggest…
Caller: Don’t play with me, stop giving me the run around.
Me: I’m not trying to give you the run around…
Caller: I’m through talking to you let me talk to your manager
Me: Okay…
So I go tell the manager about the call. He puts on the speaker phone:
Mgr: This is Tim how can I help you?
Caller: That stupid black kid answering the phone won’t help me
Mgr: Well let me see if I can help
Caller: I need oxygen
Mgr: We don’t sell oxygen
Caller: G-ddamn it, don’t start playing with me like the black kid,
Mgr: What did him being black have to do…
Caller: You’re one of them Jew boys aren’t you
Mgr: Sir?
Caller: A Jew, a jew…figures you having blacks…
Mgr: Sir…now you being insult…
Caller: F-ckin countrys going to hell
SLAM
Had to be the oddest call I’d ever been on.
Last summer I had a guy call my work number wondering if I had any escorts with DD breasts. I informed him that he had a wrong number, and he very sheepishly hung up. Poor guy.
My home phone # is one digit off from both a local pizza place and a shoe store. I get calls for both of em all the time. What’s really amazing is that people can’t seem to comprehend the fact that they have dialed a wrong number. First off, I answer with “hello”, not with “Awful, Greasy, Stinky Pizza” (hint: the pizza place’s initials are PJ) or “Really Crappy Cheap Shoes” (hint: this shoe store swears you pay less for their shoes). I would think the fact that I don’t answer with the name of the business, that that might be a clue that they have dialed a wrong number. They always say is this “AGSP” or “RCCS”? I say sorry wrong number then hang up. Sometimes the same fool calls right back! I know, let’s hit redial and this time the number will be right!:rolleyes: I like caller ID. Phone rings and sure ‘nuff it’s idiot calling right back. Then I answer, "Hello, still ain’t friggin’ “AGSP” or “RCCS” please don’t hit speed dial again." And still they say is this “AGSP” or “RCCS?” I am then inclined to reply with such witticisms as “Your family gene pool needs a good cleaning.”
Oh, and I love it when I answer with “Hello” and the idiot immediately starts ordering pizza or asks if I carry a shoe in a certain size. I always react to the pizza by saying “Damn! that sounds good. Call up “AGSP”, order an extra one, tell me where you live and I’ll come over and eat it with ya. Got any beer or do I need to pick up a six pack on my way over?” I answer the shoe questions with with “Yeah, I have that shoe but only in a 91/2 E because I only buy shoes in my size, but who knows, “RCCS” just might have exactly what you’re looking for. Course it’ll be a really crappy pair of shoes that will hurt your feet and fall apart in three weeks but hey they’re cheap.”
Every once in a while “Denise” calls up her friend “Wanda” on my answering machine and proceeds to give all the juicy details of what she and her boyfriend did last night. Since this is MPSIMS I won’t share what they do but they’re some kinky people, that Denise and her bf.
Oh, and one more. “Stephanie” called a couple of months back to give “Annette” that recipe for grilled pork loin that Annette wanted so bad. I tried it. That Stephanie has a great recipe for grilling pork loin, I tell ya! It was a hit at a cookout I held Memorial Day weekend.
Oh, oh, and wait. The local mental health clinic calls for “Anthony” from time to time. Anthony keeps missing his appointments. He shouldn’t do that. Of course, being the saint that I am, I always call the mhc back to tell them they dialed a wrong number. I wouldn’t want Anthony’s mental health to suffer, but geez, I wish they’d quit calling.
And my friends wonder why they have such a hard time getting me on the telephone.
I worked in a transportation company, and we had an 800 number set aside for truckers to call when they had insurance trouble. For a few weeks, we kept getting hang-ups or people who obviously seemed confused. Finally, once nice man called back to tell me that the number appeared in an ad for a “Busty Women” phone line. My boss - a very cool guy - actualy went and got a copy of the magazine. A typo, obviously - but we all insisted that we wanted extra money if they were adding that to the job
I called my friend’s house just before his wedding to get some details and, seeing as how lots of relative would be in, wasn’t surprised that I didn’t recognize the voice. I said “Hi, this is lieu and may I speak with Bob?”
The person on the other end said “lieu, this is Nancy Parker, Cathy’s mom!” This lady and her husband had been my Sunday School teachers and I’d dated their daughter IN ANOTHER STATE ten years before. “What are you doing at Bob’s?” I asked, because there was no way they should have known each other. “We’re not” she said.
Turns out, they’d moved into the state and a street away from my friend and had a phone number one digit off from his and I’d misdialed it.
Shazam!
I answered my phone a few months ago an the person on the other end wanted to know what I was doing in their house. I explained he called the wrong number but he was sure that he did not have the wrong number and wanted to know what I was doing in his house and where was his wife. I tried to explain again but he still was convinced he had the right number and demanded to talk to his wife now. Then I told him I was sorry that he caught me at his house but that his wife had invited the softball team over and busy doing each one. For some reason you could hear him screaming as I hung up.
Last year, I got a phone call in the office that went along the lines of
Were aware of your situation, don’t panic, the elevator mechanics are on their way…
After telling the guy I was happily sitting at my desk, it turned out he had written down the number wrong and some poor guy was still sitting stuck somewhere…
I did something similar once, calling the credit card company. There were two 1-800 numbers, one for Customer Service, the other to report a missing/stolen card. Oh, I got the 1-800 part right, then dialed the first three #s of CS, then dialed the other four #s for m/s. Got a phone sex line!
Needless to say, I quickly double checked what exactly I had dialed.
A long time ago my wife and I lived in a small rented house with one phone. It was in the kitchen, at the far end from the bedroom.
So naturally we got some attention from some idiot who thought it was amusing to make crank calls at 3 AM. He would call up and apparently try to get something urgent across in a thick accent. When I tried to be helpful he would laugh at me and hang up. That sort of class act.
So one early morning the phone rings and I stagger to the kitchen and pick it up. “Hello?” Silence.
I sigh. “Listen, friend. You need help. Get yourself some treatment.” I hung up and went to bed.
Later (at a reasonable hour) we got a very embarassed phone call from a friend of my wife. He still indulged in some illegal vices in those days which may explain why 1) he didn’t know what time it was and 2) he was so slow to speak I thought he was a breather.
Fifteen Iguana
I just have to say that makes me think of goats
I once got a weird, and slightly frightening, voicemail message. It was over a year ago. The caller ID box showed “unavailable”. It was a VERY irate (and possbily disturbed) man. It was 3 or 4 in the morning and before I completely woke up it stopped ringing and forwarded the call to the voicemail service. Thinking that it might be some family emergency I iimmediately checked the message that had been left. The guy called me by my first name but he may have got that from my outgoing message. He spoke in a whiny sarcastic voice and said something like: “Thank you soooo muuuch David for sending me that stupid-*ss message *sshole.” Then, in the same whiny voice he launched into a weird and mostly unintelligible song that included the word “pounding”. I couldn’t make out the rest of it. I hadn’t sent anyone any messages and there was no one who had any reason to be upset with me. It was somewhat disturbing, but it hasn’t happened again and no one has tried to “pound” me so I’m assuming it was a wrong number or some kind of weird practical joke.
I did a really weird wrong number once.
went on a “date” with a creepy girl (not an offical date, but generally seemed like it) had just met her… and she was the scaryest person I ever met… she gave me her phone number
later on… another freind used AIM to message me and said “your online, call my room mate! tell her to keep the door open, her name is jenifer, I forgot my key” and gets offline
I had phone numbers… just randomly written on lots of paper… try to guess which one was this freind… find one that looks right…
call “hey, this jen? yeah, this is andrew, your room mate says to leave your door unlocked all night, okay? thank you, later jen!”
turns out… scary girl’s number… room mate named jen… she decided… and still belives I am stalking her… and I can see why… “keep your door unlocked all night” eek
weirdest wrong number I got… was a series of calls from a boy to his girlfreind on the answering machine… then him calling… and FREAKING out when I answer because I was another male… answering at what he belived was his girlfreind’s number…
About 12 years ago I had a part-time job doing the night audit/desk clerk thing at a small hotel in Oregon. One night at about 3AM, the phone rang. Not looking down to see what line it was on, I answered with the name of the hotel, and “can I help you”, etc.
A man’s voice said, “Are you the night desk clerk?” I said “yes, can I help you?” He said, “Are you the guy who checked me out about a month ago?” I said, “I may have been…”
The voice sounded familiar to me, and then I thought, ‘Ah ha! It’s D! (my best friend) I wonder what he’s up to now?’ (D and I are big practical jokers, and so I figured that he was calling up to play a joke on me… so I decided to play along.
The guy on the phone gave me a fairly accurate description of myself, which confirmed to him that I was, in fact, the desk clerk in question… he said that he liked my looks, then asked me if I would be open to the thought of starring in a porn movie! Now, ordinarily this would sound weird, right (and besides, I am NOone’s picture of a male porn star: Think Ron Jeremy, add about a foot in height and about 50 pounds to the gut…)? But remember that I still thought that it was my best friend D playing a joke on me…
What followed over the next two hours was the strangest conversation that I have ever had! He asked me what kind of porn I had seen before (I, playing along with the joke, went into great detail… wondering how long D was going to drag this out), asked me if I would do gay porn (Of course, if the money was right! Remember, I still thought I was playing along with a joke!), asked about the size of my, um, equipment (I exaggerated :eek: ), etc.
After about a half hour, I realized that I was NOT talking to D at all! However, at this point I was too far in, and too curious to see where this was going, so I continued to play along…
As I said, it went on for two hours with this guy quizzing me about my sex life, and me making up screwy answers. Eventually, he said “OK… I’ll call you back tomorrow night to set up a screen-test…” I said I would wait for the call.
He hung up, and I immediately called D to confirm that it hadn’t been him… it hadn’t been, and he was less than pleased at being hassled out of bed by me at 5AM! (hey, what are friends for?)
The guy never called back… the next night, or ever again! I have wondered about this ever since. Was I nearly on the road to porn stardom? I’ll never know…
A month or so later, my boss scolded me… it seems that on a night I had been working I had answered a call on our 1-800 reservation line (which, of course, the hotel had to pay for…), and forewarded it to a room (one couldn’t tell from looking at the bill that the call had NOT been forewarded to a room)… and they had talked for two hours! Large bill! My fault!
I offered to pay for it (I don’t remember how much it was, but it was a LARGE phone bill!), but wasn’t taken up on the offer. Nice people, my employers…
A two hour call from Southern California to Oregon, about a porn career… hmmm… I keep expecting to hear myself on a Jerky Boys tape!
I still wonder what that was all about…
We used to get calls from people needing a patent attorney. They would go on and on about what ever thing they were going to revolutionize the world with. Because we were always online I’d get the messages on the voicemail. Finally I changed my voicemail so it says this is NOT a patent attorney’s office… please call them.