At the company I worked for before this place, our number must've been one digit different than American Airlines. We tried for years to get them to do something about it? I don't even remember what we suggested, to no avail. Until we started giving out wrong flight information and the calls finally stopped. I'll never forget Tommy telling them, yes, the flight is on time and hanging up. He was the big boss and shouldn't have even been picking up the phone, but he sure was tired of it. (((big grin over his gruff voice telling them to get lost)))

I once stayed in room 718 a hotel in Manhattan that was part of a European chain and that had a lot of guests who were visiting the US and trying to call friends and relatives in various New York boroughs in the 718 area code. I didn't speak enough languages to explain to them that they had to read the instructions about making calls outside of the hotel vs. inside. I later suggested to the desk clerks that if any regular guests gave them a hard time, they assign them to room 718.

This isn't a *right* number story, but back in the dark ages (when I was about five years old) and *live* people--women, of course--actually placed calls, I picked up the phone. When the operator said, "Number, please", I recognized my mother's voice. "Mommy", I said, thrilled to talk to her; I've been told it took my grandmother ten minutes to get me to hang up! Those were also the days when supervisors walked behind the line of operators to make sure they weren't indulging in chitchat with customers! Guess my mother had to do some explaining! :>)

I found a message on my machine, it was from an auto-repair business (where, I don't know) the caller just identified himself by first name and asked Leo to call him, there was some serious, expensive problem with the car and he needed authorization to proceed.
Lilo = Leo - so it's understandable, but nothing I could do.

MWheel, I remember those days of real live operators for long distance. We used to get around the charges by placing a call "person-to-person" asking for some stranger but it was a prearranged signal that "Yes, safe arrival" or "Everyone has said yes to meeting up this weekend". LOL The person answering could say "Joe is expected back Friday" thus sending you a reply message if they were alert...but the operators were canny and often shut the call off quickly. Fun memories. josh

Ah, I miss the days of human operators.

Yes, there are many telephone stories. When I was just first married and my student hubby and I lived over a garage in a University town, a pizza joint opened up. It was the first one in town/college town. You can only imagine how busy they were, and our phone number was one digit off. This happened right after I had my first baby and of course the pizza wrong number calls usually came in late at night, when I would get my baby settled.

I got tired of the wrong number routine, was mad, frustrated and am guilty of taking a few orders. I wish you could have seen my husband's face when he heard me ask the caller on the other line if they wanted extra cheese. LOL. He graduated shortly thereafter, and I wonder if the new student building super inherited the problem.

I have also, like Lilo had what sounded like important messages (but not mine) left on my machine. I have, as best I could, tracked down the caller and let them know they needed to contact the intended recipient.

Two phone calls stick out in my mind as being especially embarrassing. One of them, I had mis-dialed and the man who answered the phone seemed confused as I rattled on with my conversation. He'd say " I think you have the wrong number" and then I'd say (insert my husband's name) isn't that you? Then he'd say yes. Then I'd go on talking. He finally asked me who I was. I said "I'm YOUR WIFE!" Then the long pregnant pause. He replied. "No you aren't. My wife is sitting next to me". LOLOLOL.

But the most embarrasing call was around Christmastime when the business phone was ringing off the hook with orders, and I was tired and getting crochety. A call comes in well past business hours and when I answered, alls I could hear was heaving breathing. I replied Hello several times and still just heavy breathing. I let loose with a barrage of really blue language, then hung up. A few minutes later, the phone rung again, and when I picked it up.....loaded for bear......the voice of a really elderly man asked me if he had the right number, he couldn't tell because he was hard of hearing. OMG. I don't wish that on anyone, but for once I was glad he was.......cranked up the volume of my voice, and took his order.

The funniest one was a few years back when a couple of young teenaged girls were apparently bored and decided to make crank calls to pass an evening, and unfortunately rang me up. I'm sitting there looking at my caller ID, and wondering what rock they lived under. I told them their phone number, told them they were in deep doo when I file that number with the police, and never heard from them again. LOL

I'll bet Caller ID has almost eliminated crank calls but it reminded me of my hooligan teenage brother who worked nights and, bored, told of calling re cars for sale in newspaper ads at 2:00 a.m. He said the odd thing was that he usually got polite answers...LOL If the car had been sold, DB would say "Sounds like it was a really good deal...will you tell me mileage, etc? and believe it or not, often got further description. LOL josh

When I moved here, 25 years ago, it was so rural that everyone in town had the same first four digits on their phone#, and all you needed to dial were the last three.
When asked for your number, all you had to tell them the last three.
Good for local, but when you forgot and tried to do that to some establishment outside our little burg, they thought you were a bit befuddled.

Caller ID has not done much to eliminate unwanted calls. Anyone can block their call to that info when they make it or block their phone from displaying on an ID. You can't put a business line on a no-call list, and when you get phone solicitations illegally to your residence phone, you can't even report them, because the number is blocked.

We get all this spiel about our privacy being protected, yet it's infringed on by weirdos, spammers, and third party billing fraud. The only protection I see from the laws are to people invading yours.

When we moved into our present house, we had to get a new phone number. The one they gave us seemed to have been written on the walls in every men's room in every booze joint in one section of town. You know the kind of message..."For a good time call_______." The phone would ring for a variety of females after midnight. Always male voices. Always very late at night. Some of them so drunk that they wouldn't take "wrong number" for an answer. After a few months the calls stopped. Did they wash the walls? Paint?

I've been responsible for two doozies in the last couple of years. Both times I was trying to call my neighbor. I suppose it would help if I said "hello" and made small talk before I started saying things, but I'm more of a "stream of consciousness" conversationalist.

The first of these was a couple summers ago at the height of Japanese Beetle season. I'd been out handpicking the buggers and drowning them in soapy water. I tried to rope the neighbor kids into helping me a la Tom Sawyer, and when that failed, I tried to make a game of it, "Let's have a contest to see who can drown the most Japanese Beetles! The rules are that I can only catch them in my garden, but you can catch them in your mom's garden and in mine!" The monkeys (my neighbor's pet name for her kids) didn't bite at that either, so I just went about my business with the beetles.

The next day, I was pleasantly surprised to see a pile of dead beetles on my back patio. I assumed it was the kids next door, so I called to thank them. When their mom answered I said "Your monkeys have been busy!"

"Pardon me?"

"Your monkeys! They went on a killing spree over here! I have a whole stack of corpses on my back patio! I'm thrilled!"

"Excuse me?"

(long pause...)

"I dialed 849-XXXX instead of 850-XXXX, didn't I!" (Our village (yes, we live in one too) only has two prefixes.)

"Yes."

"I'm so sorry! Nevermind what I said about the bodies!"

When I hung up, it took me ten minutes to stop laughing enough to call my neighbor and tell her what I'd done.

Recently I called her on inauguration day. She had worked on the campaign and I knew she'd be very emotional about it... but she'd have to keep it on the down-low because she was at her parents' house, and they are staunch Republicans. In an effort to give her an opportunity to let off a little happy steam, I decided to call her on her husband's cell phone.

She answered and I said "So are you crying tears of joy?" and she said "Yes I am! It's been a great day! Who is this?"

"It's Michelle."

"Michelle who?"

"Oh crap! Apparently, it's Michelle-the-total-stranger-who-can't-dial-numbers-correctly. I'm just calling to check in on your emotional well-being. I'm happy to hear you're having a great day!"

When I finally hung up the phone, I realized I'd managed to chat for over three minutes with a total stranger. Neither of us mentioned why she was happy, which sort of made it even better, because for all I know, she had just received a promotion, or found out she was pregnant (or not!) or any of the millions of other things that can make a person beam with joy. It was a funny conversation that tickled me. And it tickled my neighbor too when I finally managed to dial her number correctly.

May have told this before but when my dear Dad passed away last year I had to call GM for his retirement benefits, Dad kept all his benefits info for the past 20 years or more, I pulled out the first one I saw and dialed and lo and behold it was a porn connection lol thought maybe I dialed wrong and tried again but same thing. Looked through his papers again found a newer benefits statement and called and got the right place, spoke to a representative regarding my Dad's benefits etc. she gave her condolences and before I hung up I had to share with her my experience with the old phone number after many apologies she admitted that upon changing their phone number it was scooped up by a porn exchange...I told her my Dad would have gotten a laugh over it as I did too.

Mine's not a funny story, but it brings us back to the efficiency of 911.

Last year I was in the hospital and afterward had to go on injectible insulin. I hadn't been doing it for very long, but was getting along quite well and since Christy is so squeamish I always tried to do it very nonchalantly when she was around.

I take two insulins, one fast acting type before each meal and one long acting type every night. The fast acting one is a small dose of 12 cc's and the long acting one is 50 cc's. Well, I gave myself my evening shot of the 50 cc's while chatting away with Christy only to look at the bottle right afterward and seeing that I had given myself 50 cc's of the fast acting one. Ooppps...

I figured I could just take some sugar type thing, soda or something and it would be fine but I called Poison Control just to make sure. She gave me good advice and to eat something sugary plus eat something longer acting like a sandwich.

Ok, did, kept track of my sugar and it didn't dip too low. Spoke to the poison control person a couple hours after and we agreed all was fine. She said she'd check in the morning. By this time it was about 3 am and I went to bed.

I totally forgot that I keep the ringer off on the phone in the bedroom. About 7:30 I was still snoozing when the extremely loud remote doorbell goes off. Darn if I could find something to put on fast enough to stick my head out the window to see who it was. I ended up clutching something or other that was on the back of the door and trying to get the window up. There to my surprise were 2 police cars and several policemen at the back door.

The poison control woman became concerned when she didn't get me on the phone and they have to follow up soooo..she called 911 for me. Maybe it was a little funny come to think of it. I had robe clutched to my chest, trying to get the dang window open, the dog is barking, I'm waiting for them to bust in the door. I assured them I was fine and they were nice enough not to make me come downstaris. It really was nice of her and them to make sure the dummy was okay.

I never thought I'd be one to make that kind of mistake, but goes to show when you're not paying attention. Tsk, tsk. I sure make sure which one I'm taking now.

Coconut?! It's amazing you didn't go comotose. I'm glad you didn't! Whew. I love how efficient emergency crews are.

Michelle, all I can say is, I just love you. Bless your heart.

What I ponder is how long some of the wrong numbers hang around. When we first moved here we'd get tons of calls asking for "Patty." I found, when I went to sign up at a local video store, that "Patty" had, indeed, had our phone number.

Now that was almost seven years ago & we still occasionally get calls asking for her. Who are these callers? Long lost friends? Clueless bill collectors? It would seem that after all this time these callers should know what her real telephone number is.

We once had an elderly woman call us, over and over again. It was sometimes aggrevating to run to the phone only to find out it was her AGAIN! Finally, one day she admitted that she was almost blind and dialing correctly was a big problem. I think she kept hitting the two when she wanted the five.

I got so that I recognized her voice and reassured her that it was quite all right, I wasn't bothered by the call. It seemed to make her feel better.

I haven't gotten a call for a couple of years. I will always wonder if she died, or figured out a way of getting it right every time.

We have a similar number to the local paediatric practice. And the Chamber of Commerce. We regularly get calls from panicky parents around 9..00am when the doctors' office opens, pleading for an appointment for a sick child. I'm pretty gentle with them - they're anxious enough already. And someone regularly tries to fax the Chamber of Commerce around 4.30/5.00pm every so often. Leaving their machine on automatic re-dial, so I get 5 calls, at 5 minute intervals, until it gives up.
Grrrr.

(The NYTimes had an article about lots of people in Queens, NY, trying to call family in India, by dialling the 911 country code, forgetting the 00 prefix. Apparently the police routinely visit, just in case, but they're pretty nice about it, taking time to explain to the caller what they did wrong)

This probably doesn't speak well for the relationship my dad had with his own father, or perhaps the relationships of some other fathers and sons in the 1970s, but I once witnessed a call in which my dad thought he was calling his parents but accidentally dialed strangers. Usually my grandmother answered the phone and did all the talking on her end. This time a man answered. My dad thought it was his dad. The man thought my dad was his son. They conversed awkwardly (the way they apparently would have spoken with their respective real family anyhow) for a good five minutes about how unusual it was for "Dad" to answer the phone, how "Mom" was, etc., before they figured it out.

There was the time I dialed the wrong number and got some (at that time) famous football player on his car phone. This was back when only really important cool rich people had phones in their car. Wish I knew what I had dialed.
There was my one and only (thank goodness) obscene phone call. It was about 11 pm and the male voice said "Want to get naked?" Not a particularly nasty comment, I thought it was some friend playing a trick and giggled and said not really. Then I start chatting away trying to figure out who it was and slowly it dawned on me it wasn't anyone I knew. I said very huffily I don't know who you are and hung up. He must have thought he got a real nut.

hilarious