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Friday, October 28, 2011

Wringing the last drop out of a wrong number

I wonder if Alexander Graham Bell got wrong numbers. I hope so. I hate them. There is nothing as loud as the sound of a phone ringing in a sleeping house at two in the morning. Lina got to it first on about the third ring. “Hello?” She answered weakly and groggily. “Is Wuzzername there?” Said a thick; slurred voice on the other end of the line. “You have the wrong number!” Lina replied, sounding more awake and a lot angrier. We put the incident out of our minds and went back to sleep. This time; when the phone rand Lina picked it up on the second ring “What?!” She barked. “Is Wuzzername there?” It was the same drunken voice. “You have the wrong number!” Lina answered with as much venom as she could muster. She slammed the receiver down even though it was cordless and that’s not what hangs it up.
Now this was far from my first late night wrong number. I remember when I was living in northern Alberta in the 1980’s. Back in those days there were no cordless phones. There was only one phone jack and it was in the living room at the other end of my trailer. When the phone rang at three in the morning I staggered ha length of the trailer in inky blackness stubbing my toe on the kitchen table in the process. “Hello?” I said still half asleep. “This is Alberta Government Telephones; I have a collect call from Henry do you accept the charges?” The operator’s voice sounded young. It figured only someone new would get stuck working at this hour of the night. I could hear a plaintiff voice in the background. A drunken plaintiff voice “Accept the charges Dad it’s me Henry.” Now Henry was a neighbor of mine. He was a sweetheart when he was sober. As there was no place to drink or buy booze in our little town he was usually sober. But every time he went to the nearest larger town he got drunk. Three a.m. was when the bars closed. “You have the wrong number.” I said putting the receiver down. I tried to get back to bed without opening my eyes.
I have had sober people call me back after a wrong number and I had barely put the phone down. I swear they hit redial. That is stupidity. Drunkenness is a different kettle of worms. Drunks have randomness to their thought process which allows their poor victim time to fall back into that deepest stage of REM sleep. The stage where young men are dreaming of waving a fly rod on a clear day in their favorite strip of trout water. A day so still and so perfect that the only flies are in your vest pockets and the only ripples on the water are trout rising to your fly. When suddenly with a deafening clatter the phone bell rends the air like the atomic bomb! I shot to my feet like I had been ejected out of bed. Again I thought I could stay asleep with the lights off so again I navigated the shoals of furniture without the benefit of the lights. I ran aground on a kitchen chair and hopped the last six feet my wounded toe in one hand as I scooped the receiver up with the other. “Hello?” I squealed into the mouthpiece. The same young voice as before; the same professional spiel “This is Alberta Government Telephones; I have a collect call from Henry.” I was stunned. There must only be one operator on duty at that hour of the night in northern Alberta. “Oh for crying out loud! It’s the same number as before lady; it’s still the wrong number!” I could still hear Henry sniveling on the other end of the line. “Well I am just doing my job! I have to put these calls through what if it was an emergency?” She sounded hurt and I immediately regretted my tone. “I’m sorry operator. But this isn’t his Dad’s place I am just trying to fish. I mean sleep.” As I hung up I made a mental note to look up Henry’s Dad’s phone number the next day.
I think the randomness is as infuriating if not more infuriating than the thing itself. I had actually hooked the fish this time when the phone exploded into action. This time I made no pretense of trying to stay asleep and I turned on the hall light which seemed to be a million candle power. It blinded me so badly I walked straight into the end table the phone sat on. “Hello?” I said dumbly into the phone. “This is Alberta Government Telephones; I have a collect call from Henry.” She sounded apologetic almost pleading. “I’ll accept the charges.” I said forlornly. She seemed stunned. There was a long silence only partly filled with the sound of Henry on the other end begging his Dad to accept the charges. “It’s the same guy; the same wrong number.” She said finally. “I know; but it is the only way I am going to get to sleep. “ I said. “I owe you.” She said kindly. For the next half an hour I got Henry’s life story. Once he realized I wasn’t his Dad he asked who I was. In time he figured it out. In time to he passed out. I hung up and grabbed the skinny phone book and turned to the half page that held our town’s phone numbers. Sure enough Henry’ Dad’s number was the reverse of mine. So Henry was not just an alcoholic he was dyslexic oot.
A month or so passed in which I slept well. Then; one night at three a.m.; the phone rang. I had learned a lesson and with a flashlight by my bed I walked the distance from my bedroom to the living room without incident. I picked up the receiver “This is Alberta Government Telephones;” A now familiar voice said. “I have a collect call from Henry for Greg. Will you accept the charges?” I was stunned. “Yes operator I will.” Henry and I had what would become our typical conversation. He talked about how bad his life was and I listened. We didn’t become friends but we became friendly. As the calls were only once in a while; and as they were no longer wrong numbers I actually grew to enjoy them; sort of.
When I moved about a year later my replacement asked me if he could keep the same phone number. We had shared the small trailer for some weeks and his parents already had the number memorized. I gave it no thought and quickly agreed. Some weeks later and in a somewhat testy voice he asked me; over the phone, of course. “Who is Henry?” “Probably a wrong number.” I commiserated. “A pretty damned persistent wrong number!” said he.
Meanwhile back in the present tense the phone rang again. I beat Lina to it this time. “Is Wuzzername there?” The voice sounded a little angry. “You have the wrong bloody number!” I thundered. Lina put her hand on my arm to calm me. “Look this is my own number; I ought to know my own number!” Said the boozy one. You should I thought but obviously you don’t. Just then an idea hit me. “Wuzzername is passed out. After you left she invited us all over and we drank all your booze and broke a few things, sorry!” There was a pause. I could almost see the look on his face as he figured out what that meant. “I am coming right home and you had better all be gone when I get there!” This time he slammed down the receiver. Lina stared at me. “So now he’s coming here?” She asked incredulous. “What do you call that?” I beamed. “Payback!” I rubbed my hands. “He isn’t coming here. He has no idea where we are. He is going home where a very surprised Wuzzername is no doubt sleeping. I’d give ten bucks to see the look on both of their faces.” I wish I had Graham Bell’s number in heaven. I’d love to ring him up and ask him if he has Prince Albert in the can.

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