I have gone through many periods of receiving frequent calls like this. After comparing notes with my siblings (all of us live in different states), we determined that it was our mother. She is a recovering alcoholic, and one of the things that tipped us off that she had fallen “off the wagon” was that all of us would get these phone calls with no one apparently at the other end of the line. (This was before the days when caller ID was easily available, and WAY before we actually decided it was worth paying for.)
There are two very strange phone calls I remember:
One: I was living in a single room in a college dorm in the mid-80’s. The phone rang one night at around 3am, and I got up to answer it.
Voice of Ronald Regan: Hello, is this Kim [Smith]?
Me: Yes (!???)
Voice of Ronald Regan: This is the president. I’m just calling to see what you think about how I’m doing?
Me: Huh???
Voice of Ronald Regan: So, do you think things are going well for the country?
Me: Huh???
etc. until I finally hung up because I had no clue what was going on and I was more than half asleep. I’ll grant that it might have been a VERY vivid dream, and I have no witnesses, but even 20 years later, I STILL swear it sounded like RR. (And I’m a die-hard Democrat, too.)
Second:
Somehow my husband and I were assigned a phone number that had recently belonged to someone else, with a completely different name. That name and our phone number were published in the next-to-most-recent phone book where we lived, so we frequently got phone calls asking for Sandy or someone related thereto. One in particular takes the cake:
Phone rings.
Me: Hello?
Teenage girl: Is Jennifer there?
Me: No, there is no Jennifer here. You must have the wrong number.
Teenage girl: Sorry. <click>
A couple of minutes later: Phone rings.
Me: Hello?
Teenage girl: Is Jennifer there?
Me: No, you still have the wrong number.
Teenage girl: Okay. <click>
About five minutes later: Phone rings.
Me: Hello?
Teenage girl: Is Jennifer there?
Me: No, I told you that there is no one here named Jennifer. You have the wrong number.
Teenage girl: Can you please just tell her that she has a phone call?
Me: There is no one here named Jennifer.
Teenage girl: I’m looking in the phone book right now under her mother’s name, and this IS the number that is listed. Why are you lying to me??
Me: You must have an old phone book, or there is a typo, because there is no Jennifer here at all.
Teenage girl: (Very angry!) The phone book says that this IS the right number, and I don’t understand why you won’t let me talk to Jennifer.
Me: I can’t let you talk to Jennifer because there is no one here named Jennifer. <click>
Two minutes later: The phone rings.
Me: Yes?? (knowing who it must be)
Teenage girl: Can I PLEASE talk to Jennifer?
Me: Of course you can. Wait a sec and I’ll get her for you.
At that point, I set the phone receiver down on the table, and went back to whatever I had been doing. An hour or so later, I hung up the phone.
