>The Caller
>As the phone rang, I glanced down at the caller ID screen. Oh. It was her again. Sighing, I picked up the receiver.
“Hello,” I said tiredly.
“Hi,” came a small voice on the other end of the line.
“Who is this, anyway?” I asked.
“Who’s this?” she replied sassily.
“Well it’s sure not the person you think you’re calling,” I said.
“Oh.” There was silence as both of us considered what I had said.
“I guess Beau Tubbert is your daddy?” I said, reading the name off of caller ID.
“Maybe,” she said.
“Well, what’s your name?” I asked.
“Liza Tubbert,” she said. Gee, this kid was brilliant.
“Liza,” I said, sighing, “You call here all the time. I’m not sure why. I’m not sure who you think this is, but I’m not that person.” She said nothing. “Who do you think this is, anyway?”
“Helen,” she said.
“Well it’s not.”
“So?”
So? So?! What was I supposed to say to that? It was time to pull out all the stops. “Do I need to speak to your mother?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Okay.” I paused. “Well, then do we have an understanding?”
“An understanding?”
“An understanding!” I was getting impatient. “I am not Helen. Helen does not live here. We do not know each other. And well, when you don’t know someone, you can’t call them just to chat.” I could hear Liza breathing on the other end.
“So do you read me?”
“Yeah,” she exhaled.
“Okay, then, bye Liza.”
“Bye.”
>haha..what a strange little thing. We apparently got the number of some guy (with REALLY bad credit) who’d had the number for twenty years or something. One day a guy called and The Man told him it was the wrong number – he kind of argued, then hung up. He called right back and I, being the bitch, answered this time. He went OFF about how that HAD to be Robert’s number because it was his number for twenty years. I couldn’t get it through his head that things were the way they were and him WANTING them to be different wasn’t going to change things and eventually had to say “LOOK! This isn’t his number anymore and I don’t want to talk to you again!” harsh, but DUDE! get the picture!hahaha…you handled it well!
>someone used our phone number to start an account at Blockbuster video. It took months to get us off their phone list. Even the manager couldn’t get it done!
>Bizarre. We get an awful lot of wrong # calls. So many that my husband wants to change our #. A lot of our wrong # calls are collect calls from various men at the local county prison. Will we accept the charges? Yeah, right.
>Weird. And so! funny! Maybe let Punky answer it the next time she calls. *shrug*
>That’s the beauty of call display. You never have to answer.Some guy that had our number before us ran up a bunch of bills and the number was given to some collection agencies. They call us all the time to find him, and for two years we just kept saying he doesn’t live here.AGGGGGGGGG!!!!!
>LOL, how totally random!We used to have a guy call all the time for Noah. But that was in the days before caller ID. He finally just quit.
>When my Aunt gets telemarketers/undesirables on the line she puts her 4 year old niece on the phone with them.And Ms Keke is a sassy little 4 year old to say the least.
>That is too funny. My mom keeps getting calls from a fax machine. Even though she tracked down the office attempting to send her faxes, the employees who work there can’t seem to understand it’s a home phone and not the fax they are wanting. This goes on and on.
>Aww, that’s so cute (because it’s not happening to me)! Yeah, I think a chat with the kid’s mom is the way I’d go.
>That is just hilarious!I am sorry for how annoying that must be for you, but for us readers… great stuff!We had that happen similarly growing up… the same person would call at least 2-3 time per week and say “Yah, is Pookie there?” Nope, you got the wrong number… “Is this xxx-xxxx?” Yup, but you got the wrong number…. “you sure Pookie not there?” Yeah, buddy we’re sure today, we were sure yesterday and we’ll be damn sure tomorrow!
>I let the machine take her calls all the time, Scattered Mom, but then she leaves these rambling ass messages. “They’re not there. No one’s answering the phone. I dunno. Okay.” etc. etc.I just think it’s funny that she’s memorized a wrong number and persists in calling it. She’s been calling us for at least 6 months now!
>creepy
>I’d join in ranting, but I’ve been guilty of it a few times lately with this one number in particular. I use the caller ID to dial now, so I don’t know numbers anymore.It seems like almost everytime I try to dial from memory I screw this one number up. The guy is really cool about it though 🙂
>Now that is funny! We are listed as a supermarket when it is searched through the internets 😉 People keep calling for the bakery. I have often thought of taking orders just for the heck of it!
>How odd! For three years, I fielded calls for my local Ryder Truck Human Resources department, and got their faxes too, at all hours of the day and night. I began conversing with those who called me, to find out who they were actually trying to reach. His name was Dave. I sleuthed out Dave’s real number and together we worked out a solution. It took several months to “stick” but it’s been a long time since I’ve gotten a call from someone looking for a job. I still get the occasional random fax though, but overall, it’s waaaaay better. Hope Liza stops calling you soon!~Monica
>When I was in grad school and had just started living on my own in a city for the first time I started getting calls from a woman screaming at me for sleeping with her boyfriend. I would tell her I had no idea what she was talking about and that my name wasn’t whatever and she would keep screaming. Then she started calling me in the middle of the night and DEMANDING that I let her talk to some man. I was listed my my initials and apparently the only person who could have those initials was her enemy. It took intervention from the phone company and the threat of a restraining order to scare her off.
>I get a lot of calls for Kevin Harp. Dont know who he is…and why he’s using my number but he sure does seem to be a popular fellow.
>When we first got our phone number I used to get phone calls for “Rodney.” Just did the whole “you’ve got the wrong number thing.” Then one day I got a message on our answering machine from Delta Airlines, telling Rosanne Cash that her flight to NY had been cancelled.I put it all together when I called the cable company for something, and they look you up by your phone number. “Mrs. Crowell?” they asked? Umm no. Read off an address on Franklin Road. Umm… definitely no. But at least I’d figured out who Rodney was.Only in Nashville.
>How is it that you make even a wrong number funny??
>We’ve had our current number for 3 years now. It belonged to a family of Mexican immigrants before. So, most of the people who call here looking for them can’t speak English and don’t understand that they aren’t here. Fun, fun! And the bill collectors think I am lying. “You AREN’T Mrs. Perez? Do you know her?” NO!! Even the local school system has called here looking for the kids.
>I get between 5-8 calls a day from people who have received fliers, email blasts and referrals from their doctor. They think I’m the local cannibus club. *sigh*
>…mostly just seems sad. (glad not to have this problem…)