The subject came up during a conversation my wife and I were having over the weekend, and I thought it might be interesting to hear from others. The thread title is the question: what do you recall being the most exciting phone call you’ve ever received? I say “unexpected” because I’m ruling out things like hearing about the birth of a child when you knew the party in question was pregnant, or someone calling about an accomplishment that you already knew they were on the path toward.
I’m looking for things that have come completely out of the blue. The excitement can either have been because of the topic of the call, or because of the person on the other end of the call (such as, you unexpectedly got a call from someone famous). Or both, of course.
I was shocked as hell when they called to tell me I was going to be on Jeopardy. I mean, I’d auditioned (twice, even), but I hadn’t gotten in the first time and the 18 months or whatever was almost up; I’d completely written it off. So obviously I knew it was a possibility but I was still not expecting it at all.
I can’t think of a call that was more exciting than when a promotional company called me on behalf of MasterCard to offer me the opportunity to throw out the first pitch at Dodger Stadium. I had purchased tickets through MasterCard to that particular game because they were offering some special deal to get really excellent seats and a chance to be on the field during batting practice, which I thought was cool enough by itself. But the chance to stand on the mound and throw out the first pitch had been a bit of a dream of mine, and the offer really came out of…well, left field, as it were. It was a bit difficult to spit out the “Yes, yes I would” in response, but I did get it out eventually. And then I spent the next week before the big moment came riding purely on adrenaline.
If by exciting you mean a positive experience, then I’ve never got such a call. But the opposite happened when my brother called to tell me had brain cancer (glioblastoma). He died a year later.
I don’t know about exciting, more like serendipitous.
In 1986 when I was finishing school, I was not the most terribly organized guy. I remember one time I happened to be in my home town - 150 miles from my college home. For some reason I stopped over at my parents’ house to pick something up. As I recall, it was a spur of the moment decision, and my parents weren’t even in town. I remember walking down the stairs to the basement, and heard the phone ring - you know, wall-mounted dial phone? When I answered, a firm I had interviewed with offered me what was to be my first job after school. I have no idea why I would have given them my parents’ number. I’ve worked for these folks most of the past 3 decades.
Cecil telling me that he had scored spots for both of us on Van Halen’s 1982 Diver Down tour. We rode on the bus with DLR. I think we made it through 14 cities before we had to tell Eddie, we could no longer take David’s constant shit, and we left.
It was a boring evening when I was a senior in high school. The phone rings, and I figure it is one of my buddies seeing if anything was going on. It turns out to be the director of admissions to the University of Chicago. He told me that I had been accepted, and my financial aid package looked very good. They would send along all of the info.
I had applied to UChicago, but hadn’t heard anything and really didn’t know when I should hear something. My original acceptance letter had been in a bag of mail put out next to the mailbox for pickup. That night Chicago got 30+ inches of snow, burying the mail bag. It was found several weeks later, and much the soggier for its stay. The director of admissions was calling everyone in that batch of acceptance letters, since he figured we would be worried about not hearing for so long.
I figure that not many people get college acceptance notifications by phone.
“Remember that fair you went to? Well, hold on to your seat! You’ve just won overnight accommodations at our Timeshare in Scenic Downtown East Urban Sprawl…! Aren’t you excited!?
All you’ll need is airfare… do you have your credit cards ready???” :rolleyes:
So funny – I was trying to think of one for this thread and couldn’t think of a phone call. I thought of the most exciting mail I got when not expecting it - big envelope from U of C which I assumed was just an info packet because it seemed too early for a letter. Accepted to grad school on a full fellowship. I received it at work since my mail at home was sketchy – I did the full beauty contest winner breathless waving thing.
Anyhoo, I can’t think of one for me so I will answer for my grandparents. My parents were on the west coast when Mom was pregnant with my brother and they decided to mention nothing to their parents. My father called his parents from the delivery room – “Hi. You have a grandson”.
Howard Cosell called me at my home. He was actually looking for my boss at the time, but his home number was unlisted. I had met Howard in person a few months earlier and he remembered my (unusual last) name and looked up my number and called me. When my husband hollered to me that Howard Cosell was on the phone for me, I thought he was joking. But once I picked up the phone, that voice was unmistakable.
For me, the vast majority of unexpected phone calls have either been bad news or very bad news.
Once, though, I got a call from the local newspaper letting me know I had won a contest; the prize being a couple of movie tickets. Not very exciting, actually.
