Don’t Bring Me Down, Bruce

One of the annoying things about moving is that you have to change your phone number. The new phone number is always one that formerly belonged to people who don’t bother to tell anyone that they’ve moved. Our phone number belonged to at least three such people.

One former owner was Asian. His (or her) acquaintances called and called and I had no idea what they were saying, but “wrong number” is such a powerful English phrase that it eventually sunk in. I haven’t heard from them in a while. One was Portuguese, which was getting closer, since Faithful Reader is Portuguese. But really, in these parts, you can’t get any credit for that. There’s a huge Portuguese community here.

The third and most annoying former owner of our number had an unusual surname, so I’m not sure about his heritage. Only 1 in 33,333 families in the U.S. have that name (according to onelook.com), but the guy’s first name is so common that it happens to be the same as Faithful Reader’s. Initially it made me much less forceful in my “wrong number” pronouncements, because it created a tiny shred of doubt, but I got over it quickly.

You have to give this guy’s acquaintances (and bill collectors) points for their persistence. We have had this number for about a year now, yet we still get phone calls for him. Thanks to caller ID, we can see how many times these people are willing to hassle us before they finally believe that they’ve got the wrong number. We can also see who they are, and if we ever feel the urge, we can hassle them right back.

Bruce was really asking for some hassling last night. First, he called shortly past midnight. Faithful Reader answered the phone and was greeted with silence. The second time was about quarter past 1:00. I answered the phone and either I sounded familiar or my sexy voice overcame his shyness because this time he asked for his friend. I told him he had the wrong number. About five minutes later, the phone rang again. I answered and there was silence, so I spoke to the silence, just to make sure we were clear, letting him know that he had the wrong number and that it was very late and he shouldn’t call back again. He must have gotten the message, at least for the night, but who wants to bet that Bruce will be hassling us again soon?