So I was calling my friend, and I thought the person who answered was his 16 year old son Jonah- it sounded just like him. He has a habit of every time he answers his dad’s cell of screwing with me for three minutes before eventually turning the phone over, so I braced myself.
Me: Hey Jonah, lemme talk to your dad.
Jonah: Who?
Me: Your dad, Matt. You know who I am talking about.
Jonah: Who is this?
Me: You know who it is, it’s me, John Cole.
Jonah: My dad is not here.
Me: Yes he is. You’re on vacation together in the same damned hotel room.
Jonah: I don’t know who you are talking about.
Me, now completely pissed: God damnit Jonah, put your dad on the fucking phone. Why do we have to go through this every time I call?
Jonah: Hey, don’t cuss me out, I don’t even know who the fuck you are. CLICK.
It was then, and only then, that I noticed I had misdialed by one digit. So, sorry random woman out there who sounds like my friend’s sixteen year old son.
Keith
I’ve been Jonah on the line before. But I would have told you to go fuck yourself and hung up by the time your Jonah said “Who is this?”. I’m just a nightmare to deal with on the phone.
Just Some Fuckhead
Whenever someone says to me “maybe you dialed the wrong number”, I always reply with “maybe you answered the wrong phone!” It helps ease the tension.
Valdivia
Why we love you John.
rammalamadingdong
I thought you sounded familiar. NP
Jason
John Cole still calls his friend on vacation using a land line? Why, John, why? The twentieth century happened recently, you may have noticed something going on.
smintheus
Instead of “Hello” it would be much more useful in a lot of ways if we answered the phone “Do I know you?” The question certainly puts a lot of callers on the defensive right away, and I’m guessing probably wouldn’t ruffle actual friends very much.
The Other Bob
I seem to get text messages like this. Of course, I screw with them before I let them know it is the wrong number.
Soonergrunt
That’s some good shit right there.
MobiusKlein
When in college, we had the two line thing – one for modem, one for voice.
Whenever we got a call on the data line, we’d answer “hello, wrong number” which would really fluster folks.
Corner Stone
It sounds like your friend Matt is a moron.
PeakVT
I used to answer with “Speak” sometimes, which would fluster all but the biggest smartasses.
kc
Bwahahaha!
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I’ve been known to answer “Shea Stadium, third base,” which makes no sense anymore. But it was moderately witty and certainly confusing, prior to 2010.
Valdivia
@PeakVT:
Oh I love that! Will have to do it some time to a friend see what happens! ;)
YellowJournalism
Try answering with two screaming children drowning you out sometime. Works great when you know it’s a telemarketer. I don’t even bother saying “hello” and just aim the phone their way.
MonkeyBoy
I once received a call:
Caller: Where’s my money, bitch.
Me: Who are you calling?
Caller: You better not be gone when I come over to get the money.
Gin & Tonic
@PeakVT: I often answer the phone by saying “What”, not in an interrogatory voice. My wife hates when I do that, and it flusters other people.
catclub
My brother says he answers telemarketing calls to him with:
“No, this is the butler.”
Soonergrunt
@catclub: Interrupted a telemarketer once with “put down that knife! Stay back!! NO!!” and then screaming before I hung up.
You’d think they would’ve called the police or something, but nope. Also never heard from that company again.
EnfantTerrible
I used to get calls from people who were looking for the person who previously had my cell number. I eventually learned that – one, the person they were looking for had moved to Singapore; and two, he owed a lot of money to some of the people looking for him. Made for some interesting conversations!
PurpleGirl
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): It’s the Star Trek Convention in 1977. I and a few friends are manning the information line in a con suite. LD answers phone, “Bridge, Lt. Palmer speaking.” (She’s been using that line all morning.) LD turns pale and hands the phone to me. It’s Leonard Nimoy wanting to talk to the Convention chairman. (I had phone to someone else and go running off to find said Chairman.)
Valdivia
I guess I have been missing out all my life simply answering hello. As out there as I get is to say it in Spanish.
TaMara (BHF)
I answer the work phone:”Joe’s Bar and Grill, Grill speaking”. Of course we have caller ID and I only do it when my boss calls in.
It’s a wonder I still have a job.
Patricia Kayden
@MonkeyBoy: Now that’s hilarious. Although I would be afraid that they would come to get their money.
PurpleGirl
Got home from work one day and there’s a message on the answering machine. I play it back. A long message comes out about ordering uniforms and baseball equipment for a little league team. The guy has a Spanish accent. Repeats the info and says it’s important to get the stuff on time as the season is opening.
He doesn’t leave a phone number. Question: My announcement is clearly telling callers they have reached X.Z. Kxxxx. No mention of a sporting goods store. Couldn’t the guy realize that he had a wrong number? And to not leave his a contact number? I’ve often wondered what happened when he got to the store and the goods weren’t there for him and the team.
Paddy
I still don’t understand why people get flustered when I answer the fon, “Hey Joe, thank god you called.” or whatever salutation expresses the fact that I know who’s calling when caller i.d. has been around for a bazillion years?
Can’t count the number of supposedly sophisticated people who get discombubulated by this.
GG
I have a history of weird (not criminal, just weird) wrong number calls. To my phone, including a few weeks when I first lived off campus in St. Paul, when ppl calling the Railroad (Burlington Northern? I keep thinking it was the Rock Island… it’s been a LONG time) That was fun. Not. But it was the only actual experience of truly “crossed lines” I’ve ever heard of. We got Long Distance calls too, and the operators would be asked to help, get Us, and just weird out.
It was insanely annoying for all of us concerned, but it was only when we just started pretending to BE the RR that we seemed to get any action on the problem.
A couple of decades later, when my husband & I bought our house in LEX, it turned out our new landline # must have been some Spanish-speaking lawyer (or something less reassuring), because for months we got collect calls from prisoners in prison. At all hours of the day and night. That was fun. But I loved that number (it was a numerical “palindrome”) and I so wish I could have kept it.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Oh,I’d forgotten how when I was much younger, my number was painted on the sign for a very popular local park with several ball fields. They had 2 numbers; one was mine. I was tired of the wrong numbers so I called weekly for months asking them to change it.
In frustration, I just started agreeing to whatever date the callers wanted to schedule the fields. It still took them 8 months to take the number down. More mature me wouldn’t do that to those innocent folks caught in the stupidity of a business with a less than gifted sign painter.
Punchy
@Gin & Tonic: this. I do the exact same thing, andit pisses off the wife as well….
GG
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Yeah, the more mature me… sigh. This was 1970, I was 17, a sophomore in college (yes I was), and omg was I immature. I think (hope) I was mostly just rude to the callers, although anyone who asked “Is such and such true” I said ‘Yes.” Totally guilty, but people WOULD NOT BELIEVE they didn’t have the RR.
And then, neither would the operators at first. THEY got “srsly concerned” but nothing seemed to get fixed until enough hassle had ensued that the RR actually seemed to get some blowback.
smintheus
@TaMara (BHF):
Ruckus
I realize that telemarketers have shitty low paying jobs and are reading off a script most of the time but if they call 2-3 times in a day or two I ask for their number so I can call them back. Because I’m on the can. They never call back after that. OK one company did. I pulled out all the sailor talk for that one. Never another call.
Eljai
I did the same thing a few years ago! Dialed wrong and had a fruitless conversation with someone I thought was my teenaged niece messing with my mind again (the niece is a lovely young adult now, whew!). When it occurred to me that I might have dialed the wrong number, I panicked and hung up. Then the phone rang, and I could tell from caller ID it was the wrong number calling me back. I almost picked up and blurted out “I’m not a deviant!”, but I just froze and let it ring.
catclub
@smintheus: If I start a restaurant it will be the Bonsai Cafe — “Where the petite meet to eat.”
L. Ron Obama
Did you call back to apologize, John?
Gravenstone
Growing up, our number was 5090. Number of a local tavern on the same exchange was 9050. Lots of fun, that.
In college, my roommate (grad student in chemistry) shared a name with one of the college baseball players (who was apparently exceedingly popular). Lead to many an answer inquiring whether the caller sought the baseball player or the chemist. Finally, one day in frustration I answered “Grimm and Judge, Alchemy Incorporated.” Turned out it was my roommate, who quite liked the idea and appropriated a version of it years later for his consultancy.
Same roommate and I went to visit his brother, who was also in grad school for chemistry, as were his two roommates. Phone rings and they bid me to answer since I was closest. Female voice asks for the “nerd chemist”. I look around, confused and ask her, “which one? there are five of us here”. Turned out it was the fiance of one of the roomies.
Arclite
Okay, I’ve been having an absolutely shitty Sunday installing a new kitchen cabinet and sink: you know the one where you keep running into issue after issue that requires jury rig after jury rig so that it will work right without leaking or rotting out the cabinet. I’ve been at it all weekend.
Anyway, taking a break and reading this totally cracked me up. Thanks for the break, Mr. Cole.
LT
Fucking hilarious. Can “Goddamnit Jonah” be added to the lexicon somehow?
anthrosciguy
“Does that mean you’re not coming?” – Arlene Golonka to Betty Walker
LT
@L. Ron Obama: Calling back to apologize is the pupa stage of stalking.
Joseph Nobles
So if Jonah reads your blog, you’ve given him an excellent way to punk you by pretending to be this woman.
mai naem
My work cell number used to belong to an older Republican couple(Victor and Verna.) Surprisingly, I haven’t gotten that many phone calls this year so maybe they’ve started calling them at their new number. I have gotten primary push polls, calls for campaign donations etc. The first couple of times I told them they were calling the wrong number, then I started wasting their time.
opium4themasses
I get emails for the wrong people all the time. I have two first names (my last name is also a common first name). I also got a gmail address early enough that I didn’t have to add numbers.
I continually get emails for someone’s plastic surgery and follow up appointments. I got coupons for LA living Social (I live in Texas). I also get emails intended for some Hollywod type person. No matter what I do I cant seem to fix it. Even better is I get stuck in the reply all trap. People repky to eallier messages before getting yo mine to remove me from the list.
Ahh well. I get to pretend I played Father Mulcahey.
smintheus
@catclub: Ha ha ha!
libarbarian
Slow your roll, Prof. Cole.
rea
On my home office telephone, I got a series of irate calls about the failure of a lawyer to appear for a scheduled hearing. Right profession–I’m a lawyer and that’s my busniess phone–but I’d never heard of the case. A little rruther questioning eventually revealed that the case was pending in San Diego. Apparently there’s a lawyer in San Diego with the same phone number as mine, just one digit off in the area code . . .
tybee
many moons ago, we used to get irate calls from some guy looking for some woman. usually at night and sometimes in the wee hours when he was drunk.
many, many times the spouse tried explaining that he had the wrong number. that never made it through the fog.
this went on for months. 5 or 6 months as i recall.
it was kind of amusing for a while but not for that length of time.
eventually he started calling in the mornings looking for that woman.
i started answering the phone and telling him that she was asleep or in the shower or i’d get her to call him back when she got dressed….
didn’t seem to matter. still got irate calls at all hours.
finally, one morning, he called and i told him: “you didn’t hear? oh my god”.
got a concerned voice asking “what happened? what happened? TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED!!”
so i told him that she was killed in a car wreck.
silence for a few seconds and then a click.
no more calls….