This has been a very odd couple of weeks in the cell phone category. It all started when Linda started getting strange text messages from a strange male at odd hours of the night usually with bodies of “Watz up” or “You no talkin to me no more” etc. Our guess is some woman gave out a random phone number at a bar or the idiot was too drunk to write it down right. Soon after that she got a call from a wrong number in the wee hours of the morning. She informed the caller she had the wrong number only to have the same number call back almost immediately. This was met by “YOU STILL HAVE THE WRONG NUMBER!!” You don’t want to annoy my wife while she is sleeping. Then, yesterday I get a call on my cell from a number I didn’t recognize. My standard mode of operation is to let those go to voice mail just in case it is someone I might not want to talk to. Turns out it was a lady inquiring about a house I had for sale in Eureka. Truth be told, I do not have a house for sale in Eureka, so once again I assumed a fat fingered call and deleted the message. Twenty minutes later I get a call back from the same number but no message this time.
Which brings us to the tipping point when I decided it was worth bringing to the blog. Today around 3:30pm I get a call from the same number with the house inquiry. Figuring someone might have incorrectly put my phone number on house listing, I decided to actually take the call and see what was going on. To my surprise it is a male’s voice on the other end who asks “Who is this?” Not about to give any personal information to stranger in this day and age, the immediate response was “Who are you trying to reach?” He was apparently a little taken aback and informed me that he “was checking a number that was on his phone”. Alarms started going off at that point and gave my last comment as “Well, I didn’t call it”. After making a comment that sounded like “uh, well …” he hung up. After a few moments I began to rewind this call trying to put some context to it. After a few rewinds I decided one plausible scenario is that the guy could be married to the lady who called yesterday. Maybe their marriage isn’t going that well and she is cheating around (or he is) and she is looking for someplace to move into. Mr. Jealous husband is now pulling a Magnum P.I. and trying to track down who she is hanging out with or trying to get some evidence if she is planning something. If this is the scenario, it probably wasn’t comforting to have another male answer the phone – much less someone not willing to provide any information.
Oh well, I thought it was kind of humorous and decided to share. If you have other interpretations for how this event might have been playing out, please share it in the comments.
You know, years ago, before cell phones, I got a call that woke me up about 6:00 in the morning. I barely managed to mumble enough in a barely awake state to say “Hello?”, and this older woman on the other end of the phone hesitated and said in a little voice, “Sally??”. Given that I sounded more like a Yeti than a Sally and the mother’s voice was so sad, I quickly told her she had the wrong number (which of course she did) and fortunately she believed me and was so relieved. I’ve never forgotten her plaintive reaction.
I agree with your scenario as the most likely one. And I think he would have known that you didn’t call his number but it was the other way around, because all the cell phones I’ve had (say, 3) have had separate listings for dialed vs. received vs. missed calls. Just be glad that (mostly) cell phone numbers are kind of private.
Ron
Wow, that post was made about 1am and I already got a comment on it. Apparently someone needs to start getting more sleep 8^). To be honest, I almost decided to have some fun with the conversation – maybe saying something like calls to Gigilo’s Anonymous are confidential or I was hoping she would call back. This of course would have been a tad cruel and may have resulted in some very bad things. Although in your situation, responding with “Maybe, let me wake her up and find out what her name is?” would have been hilarious.
Thanks for sharing!