CNN reports that a college student recently acquired Paris Hilton's old cell phone number. The college student was bombarded with text messages from fans and other walks of life. This brought back a memory of a mixed number fiasco that I was involved with a few years back.
When I first moved to NYC about ten year ago all of my friends stressed the importance of having a 212. Nobody is going to take you seriously unless you have one. Or so I was told and perhaps foolishly believed. This was a bit of a problem for me because there was no way I could afford NYC rents. I lived then (as I do now) in Brooklyn. 718 baby!!
So I signed up for a voice mail service that furnished me with the coveted 212 number. Now this was merely a voice mail service not a phone that I could just answer. After a few months, I started to get these strange messages. Mostly they were from guys speaking in very low and very timid voices asking me to call them back. Now I did have postcards with my photo and this phone number on it (to send to casting directors) and I understood that I was going to get the occasionally crazy phone call. This was part of the business and quite frankly another reason I got a voice mail service.
As if this wasn't disturbing enough, I would also get phone calls from various men, shall we say..pleasing themselves and then hanging up. The strange thing was is that I had caller ID on this voice mail so I always knew where the call was coming from. Also, all these phone calls were coming from different phone numbers and different people and there would seem to be a flux of these calls every six weeks or so. The situation seemed very strange and so I decided to brave it by going to a pay phone and returning one of the breathers phone calls. The conversation went something like this.
Breather: Hello
Lornagrl: Hi, I'm sorry to bother you, but I noticed that you left a message on my voice mail asking me to call you back. I know this sounds strange, but I've been getting a lot of these phone calls over the past few months and I was wondering if you could shed some light on this situation as I have absolutely no idea why I'm getting these phone calls.
Breather:Oh...Um...Do you do phone sex?
Lornagrl: Well actually, no I don't. May I ask why you think I do?
Breather: Well, I found your number in an ad.
Lornagrl: Would you mind telling me where you saw the ad?
Breather: Sure...Hold on...
...and I was actually put on hold for a few moments while breather went to fetch I am certain a very dog eared and sticky magazine from under a mattress somewhere in Pittsburgh.
Breather: It says to call 202-555-6374* for *&@?!!.
...So there it was. My voice mail number was 212-555-6374. Just one digit off. So much for the
prestigious 212..
*phone numbers have been changed to protect the innocent..
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