I have experienced quite a few weird things in my life, but I feel this is one of them that takes the cake.
As I was sitting at my computer playing a co-op game of Diablo III, I got a phone call so I told the person in my group that I would “brb”. The call came in on my cell phone and I didn’t recognize the number. Now, in normal circumstances I would not pick it up because 98% of the time if it’s a number I do not recognize, then I know it’s a wrong number and don’t pick up. But today, curiosity got the best of me. I picked up and was greeted with the soft voice of an elderly woman.
She said “hello” and asked what did I want. The first thing that came to mind was, uh lady, YOU called ME, so what do YOU want, interrupting my game of D3? Of course, I didn’t say that and I politely told her that this was my cell phone and I had not called her and that she had dialed the wrong number. Then she asked if I was calling for Mr. Heinz. I told her I didn’t know a Mr. Heinz and again told her I had not called anyone. She replies well, I see your phone number xxx-xxxx on my caller ID several times today and some other days. At this point, I am getting irritated and trying not to hang up on the old lady. I asked her what was the area code on the phone number because I had not called her. Of course, she doesn’t know how to check her caller ID to view the area code; she said her caller ID only showed the number and not the area code, but I already knew what she had done; she called back the number on her caller ID, but didn’t input the area code.
I tried to explain to the old lady that she had dialed the wrong number and told her to find a way to check the area code of the number on her caller ID so she can dial the right number. Then she says to me, “You know, Mr. Heinz was a married man. I’m his wife, he was 89, and we’ve been married 38 years but he died.” I told her I was sorry to hear that. I felt the direction where this was going and I didn’t want to hear her sob story. I really wanted to get back to D3. I told her again that I had not called her or her husband and I told her it was probably a surveying company called Gallup because they have the same telephone number that I do, but have a different area code. She says mhmmm. But this was coming from a Black woman and if you’ve ever heard a Black woman say mhmmm, that means, I don’t believe a word you’re saying. She was probably even giving me the squinty eye on the other end of her telephone. You know, “the eye” that can cut you. Then the old lady’s voice completely changes to a loud angry voice and says:
I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU TALKING TO A MARRIED MAN!!! HE’S MARRIED!!!!
I was like huh???!! So at that point, I told her again she dialed the wrong number and to try her call again. And I hung up. I lol’d so hard after that call but it did raise some interesting questions:
1. Are you THAT insecure about your man at the age of 60, 70, 80 or whatever that you STILL think he’s cheating?
2. Wait, didn’t you say he was DEAD?
The whole time I’m thinking, Seriously? Wow lady do you REALLY think I want elderly balls? COME ON! I know you can tell by my voice over the phone that I’m young and sound nowhere near elderly status. Get a grip!! Someone is clearly off their meds!
tl;dr … people don’t know how to dial
Just a little background information on the problem I’ve been having with my cell phone. I’ve had the same cell phone number for about 10 years now. I kept my same phone number for so long because it’s the best phone number I’ve ever had and the easiest to remember because it’s essentially the same digit; I originally got the number from Sprint. But it also turns out that my cell phone number looks like a business phone number because the last four digits are the same number.
Well, out of the blue, a few years ago, I started getting a throng of wrong number calls to my cell phone, so I got suspicious and called my wireless provider, who at the time, was Cox Wireless; I have ported my number to 3 different carriers just to keep my number and this flood of wrong number calls has happened across all three carriers. But this throng of wrong number calls I get, was an issue before I came to Cox, but only they actually took the time and troubleshot the problem with me. We were able to find that the problem was not really a “problem” at all; it’s just a big case of people dialing the wrong number.
My number is similar to a business called Gallup‘s phone number. For the last 5 years or so, there is an organization called Gallup that is a United States based surveying company. They conduct surveys on different things mostly regarding the government so they randomly call your home asking opinion polls. If you work in a government job, you may have heard of them as they do alot of the survey poles for government and companies that do contract work for the government, so of course with the Presidential elections coming up, Gallup is probably in full swing calling every household in America right now, so I am expecting to get alot of wrong numbers from now until election day. Gallup poles asks Americans’ opinions about the Presidential race. The problem is, they have the EXACT same phone number as me except it’s in a different area code. They are in Georgia and I am in Virginia. So when someone in my area looks on their caller ID and they live in the same area code as me, they call back the number and overlook the area Georgia area code and voila! They get me. I’ve been cussed at and yelled at these last few years, several times a month from people who call the caller ID number back and get me so that’s why now when I see an unrecognized number on my phone, I don’t pick up, I just let it roll to voicemail and listen to their angry message for not picking up later.
If I could only post my rage voicemail messages from people for you to hear, it would have your stomach hurting from laughing so hard. People REALLY get angry when they see the same phone number on their caller ID several times a day. But I’m not changing my phone number, I love my number and I had it before Gallup did.