At 10:24 PM 4/5/02, Julia wrote: >Ronn Blankenship wrote: > > > > At 01:29 PM 4/4/02, you wrote: > > >Here's a new one. I just took a call from Southwestern Bell, our > > >telephone company. It turned out to be a wrong number. > > > > > >(I looked up the name she'd asked for, and noted that the number listed > > >under that name could conceivably be mis-dialed as ours, but it would > > >take a bit more effort than the usual missing one number -- the last 4 > > >digits of our phone number are ABAC and the caller had dialed BABC > > >instead.) > > > > > > Julia > > > > Dyslexia, perhaps? > > > > In addition to calls for other "Blankenships" with similar initials to my > > father and now myself, we used to get a lot of calls for a ceramics store > > in town called the "Pixie Pottery". IIRC, the three prefix digits were the > > same, but the rest of the two numbers were too dissimilar for the number of > > misdirected calls to be easily explained, so we wondered if the two > > circuits were somehow crossed at the phone company . . . > >It was actually getting to where I almost missed wrong number calls. > >We had a second number on the main phone line that was for my co-workers >to reach me, so Dan would know not to answer. (It was just a lot easier >all the way around for people to leave messages on the machine if >necessary than to have Dan deal with taking a message. Plus which, he >had the habit of picking up the phone before I could see who it was on >the Caller ID, and he'd have to find me to tell me it was for me. >Having the second ring on that line helped a lot.) It was one digit off >from the pharmacy of a grocery store, and that one digit was an "8" for >the pharmacy and "3" on my number. People misread their prescription >bottles when calling for refills now and again (which translated into 2 >to 10 wrong-number calls per week, which I handled as graciously as I >could). Since we dropped that number, we've gotten a lot fewer wrong >numbers. > >That number that was one off from the pharmacy wasn't the number I had >originally been issued; they made a typo in a phone book, and I started >getting calls for a mechanic that's about a mile from here, 5 to 10 >times a day, and the best they could do was give me a new number >(couldn't exactly send out retractions to everyone who'd gotten that >phone book!).
And after years of the above at home (after which the phone company redrew their districts and changed our number), I got my commission and became an engineer working on flight test in the Air Force. I had several phone lines that went through the secretary, and one which went directly to my desk: extension 3303. The appointment desk at the base hospital had extension 3033 . . . -- Ronn! :) God bless America, Land that I love! Stand beside her, and guide her Thru the night with a light from above. From the mountains, to the prairies, To the oceans, white with foam� God bless America! My home, sweet home. -- Irving Berlin (1888-1989)
