Wrong number?Please leave a message after the beep

I have always had an unlisted telephone number here, and for some reason known only to the telephone company, it costs me an extra $6 a month. You would think if they don't have to give out your number or print it in a book, they would be saving money. I presume they must sell phone numbers and are charging me the loss of income for not selling my number. (now we know)

My first two years here I just had a cell phone, since I didn't have any lines in. I was the icon of, "can you hear me now?" . The few days I could get any signal at all, I had to perch on a certain step or stand on the southwest (outside) corner of the house on my tiptoes.

Finally I had the landline put in. I lasted less than six months with the first number. Apparently the person who last had the number had run up a bunch of bills, and I was getting all their collection calls. Not nice.

So, I called the phone company to get another number, with much regret, as it meant I also had to reissue my phone number to the people who have access to it. The phone company told me that they hold cancelled numbers a very brief time before reissue-hence my trouble with the first number.

I begged them to search for numbers that had been out of service the longest, and she came back with three or four choices, the longest which had been about six months. I picked one and have had pretty good luck with it. I later found out that it had belonged to a minister, when someone rang a few months later looking for him. She was quite nice and we had a lovely conversation! LOL.

Then a few years back, apparently someone sufferring dyslexia received a number very similar to mine, but kept giving mine out. I was quite gentle about these wrong numbers for quite awhile-then one caller had the misfortune of catching me at a bad time, and caused me to dash for the phone. I asked them when they please got ahold of the fellow, to ask him to stop giving out my number. That put a stop to those calls-poor guy-his friends did sound like nice people !

Of course, I still get the occasional wrong number. Sometimes they are the same (very embarassed)folks. I am always sympathetic, as I used to frequently misdial the same number when trying to reach an out-of-state-relative by misdialing the area code and calling New Jersey by mistake. OOPS.

Once I had a message from someone asking to be picked up at a hospital, and I hit *69 to get the number and called the hospital back and told them what happened, and they put me on with the person waiting for a ride so I could tell them they had the wrong number!

IN the last two days, I have had two wrong numbers on my answering machine. The first was for Brian. Apparently Brian is in arrears on something to do with a car company-the lady sounded quite annnoyed and said that was her last attempt to reach him before starting legal proceedings. Uh-Oh. Poor Brian never got THAT message.

Today there was a message from a very prestigious local jeweler. I recognized his voice from the radio ads. His message was for Joe, to invite him to a special sale that was not going to be open to the general public. If Joe wanted to make an private appointment for viewing, please call back.

I couldn't help but wonder what sort of purchase Joe had made at this lovely jeweler to qualify him for a personal invitiation.

Then I started thinking I might perhaps change my voice message and raise my voice an octave, since these folks seemed to believe they were leaving messages for Brians and Joes. LOL.