I’m sorry, but you have reached the wrong number

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back when I lived in Columbus, Ohio I had to change the message on my answering machine. An insurance company opened a drive-up center for handling automobile claims about a third of a mile from my apartment. They had a phone number almost identical to mine. Only the very last digit differed by one. Even so, I had one woman call again when I was home, and insisted that she had been told to call my number. I politely said, no, you were told to call a very similar number.

 

When I was in high school in Pittsburgh, one of my sister Ellen’s friends, had a similar problem – but no answering machine. Tammi did her homework at their kitchen table, near the wall phone. A pizza parlor had opened with a phone number that also only was one last digit different from her family’s. After a few days she quit trying to have a polite conversation and redirect those constant callers. Tammi just started ‘taking’ their pizza orders.      

 

The cartoon of a man on the phone came from Wikimedia Commons