Sorry Wrong Number

For those Googling the Barbara Stanwyck movie, you're in the wrong place.

This is another piece about the stupidity of the world around us.  And, in a world where instant communication is almost required, how hard it is for some folks to get ten digits right.

Okay, it should be eleven, since most people have to dial a "1" first before you commence with the phone number you want to connect to.  I'm guessing there are some goofballs who miss the "1' as well.  The telecommunications equivalent of misspelling your own name on a job application.

But, I digress oh, so slightly...

Despite the alleged presence of a national "Do Not Call" list, we're all still plagued by telemarketers.  Phone companies asking you to try out their brand new DSL service.  Air duct cleaners telling you that you're inhaling soot with every breath.  Even Tom Hanks telling me to vote for Barbara Boxer.

Hang up.  Hang up.  Most definitely....Hang Up.

Over the last several years, on two different coasts, there is the new phenomenon.  My LA work number being mistaken for not one, but two different business concerns.  The same has been happening at the phone in my New York apartment. 

Surely, Alexander Graham Bell didn't think this was going to be that hard, did he?

In my California office,  I regularly get calls from local hospitals all over the Los Angeles area.  Is it okay to admit patient so-and-so?  I'm supposedly Miss Burns at some HMO. 

Okay, they even leave voicemails and my outgoing message couldn't be clearer.  I say my full name.  I use a man's voice.  And the broadcast business will never usually be mistaken for Kaiser Permanente.  But, still, they leave recorded pleas.

"Please call back at your earliest convenience.  So-and-so is still on a gurney in our hallway."

Now how the hell do you ignore that?

So, schmuck that I can be, I call back.  The healthcare industry is screwed up enough without me singlehandedly knocking off a couple of patients on my own.  Everytime I do so, I ask what number they have for Miss Burns.

It's my work number. 

Okay, now I'm thinking about Miss Burns and wondering why anybody would entrust their health to somebody with an innate inability to provide her own phone number correctly.  Was there a misprint on her business card that she didn't catch?  Is there an error on a website?  Or is she just plain dumb?

I actually call the phone company and they do an investigation.  Somehow, my phone number and the digits to reach Miss Burns at the HMO are identical.  Listen closely as both Alexander Graham Bell and Don Ameche do flip turns in their caskets.

I don't know how they managed it, but the phone company made the calls stop.  For a while.

Recently...

"I'm trying to admit so-and-so to the hospital.  May I speak to Mr. Jacobs?"

D'oh.

I should be delighted that Miss Burns got shitcanned from her job.  But, gang, I doubt Mr. Jacobs is much better.

Moving on, my work number is apparently very close to the same number for the Chatsworth Greyhound Bus station.  So, dialing fingers slip and you really need to make allowances for the inherent stupidity of anybody traveling by Greyhound these days.  I guess I can understand how this can occur.  Nevertheless, every so often, I'll get a call from a Hispanic-sounding voice.

"What time is the bus to Fresno?"

Sorry, you've got the wrong number.

One day, some irate Mexican didn't believe me.

"No, I did not dial the wrong number."

Well, his response wasn't as coherent as I just typed it.  But you get the idea.

I insisted to Senor Knucklehead that I was perfectly capable of judging my own surroundings and, after one more look around, yep, this is not the Chatsworth Greyhound Bus station.

"Fuck you."

Click.

Fifteen seconds later, my phone rings again and I don't recognize the incoming digits.  Obviously, my new best friend really was insistent that he was right.

I picked up the phone and quickly disguised my voice. 

"Yeah, this is Greyhound, Chatsworth station."

At 3:30PM that afternoon, this scumbag was waiting for a bus that may or may not be leaving for Fresno momentarily.

Fuck you right back.

Of course, as I mentioned above, the lunacy is not confined to the West Coast.  Nope, there are a few lunkheads on the East Coast as well.

For some reason that I can't even explain perfectly myself, I keep a land line active in my Westchester, NY apartment.  Perhaps it's simply because I've had the same phone number there for almost thirty years and I've grown way too found of it. 

Every few weeks or so, I will call voicemail and clear out the messages.  Most are recorded greetings from somebody named Spano running for some political office.  But, over the past six months, there are at least two messages a week from representatives of the Empress Ambulance Service.  They are looking to speaking to a "Miss Figueroa" who's obviously behind in her payments for the ambulette that is taking her to whatever doctor is treating whatever imaginary illness she has.

Once again, my outgoing voicemail greeting certainly doesn't sound like a woman.  Or a Puerto Rican one at that.

During one NY trip, I decided to take action.  I called the number that was left for me and reached "somebody" at Empress Ambulance.

This might have been where Miss Burns landed from her job at the HMO.  She didn't understand the problem I was explaining.   They obviously had the wrong number for Miss Figueroa, who actually might have even given them the wrong number herself just so she could cover her tracks.  Whatever the case, getting this dimwit to understand the issue was akin to explaining quantum physics.

Finally, she promised to change her records.

That made it worse.  For the next several weeks, Empress Ambulance cluttered my voice mailbox so much they used up all the memory.

Last week, I called them.  Again.  And told them that one more wrong number call for Miss Figueroa was going to be considered by me as harassment and that I would report them to the federal authorities.

"So does that mean Miss Figueroa can't pay?"

I give up.

Dinner last night:  Philly cheese steak sandwich at Dodger Stadium.