Wrong numbers

Mentioning wrong numbers on my cell phone made me think about all the wrong numbers we get on our home phone. Of course there are the usual mis-dialed numbers that happen every once in a while, but then there are also the ones we get all the time.

We haven't gotten this one for a while, but we used to get calls for the people who had our number before. The phone book had their new number listed, but it also continued to list them as having our number. I think it's only been in the past year or two that they got the phone book printed properly. Only around...oh, nine years, I think! :)

What we get now is the old guy who really needs speed-dial. We would answer the phone and hear, "DAVE!!!" "Uh, I'm sorry you have the wrong number..." "Oh."
We're not sure if he's calling Dave because he needs a ride home from the bar (it generally sounds from him and the background noise like that could be the case!) or if he's bored and poor Dave is the one who gets called, or what.
More recently he's realized that he always gets us, and when we answer the phone we get:
Guy: "Oh, I dialed the wrong number again, didn't I?"
Us: "Yes."
Guy: "Yeah, see the number I'm trying to dial is this, and I get it mixed up, and... I'm sorry!"
Us: "That's okay."
Guy: "You have a good day!"
Us: "Yeah...you too..."

Of course, you'd have to hear him to really understand...he generally converses in a fairly loud tone that's not exactly yelling, and which I thought about showing with exclamation points, except it's not really excited either...

Then we get the calls for "Perfection Exhaust" because the number is one digit different from ours.

We haven't gotten any text messages meant for other people, but we got a message on our answering machine. We usually have a recorded greeting, but the power had gone out or something, so we lost the greeting and Dad hadn't had time to record another. So we get home one evening and find this big long message from some lady who thought she called her boyfriend, and it was very long and complicated. It sounded like they'd had a fight and she was trying to apologize, and he was supposed to call her back. I'm afraid it might have caused some misunderstandings if he didn't call her back, but we really didn't want to call her and explain to her that we'd heard her phone message!

Yep, we probably get more wrong numbers and things than real phone calls!

Oh and I got another call on my cell phone the other day! It was the number that I knew was somewhere at Forsyth Hospital, but this time the lady said it was the dentistry something or other department... they want Lucas Landing, Blanding, or quite possibly Sanding... some last name that I think ends with "anding"! I couldn't find anything like that in the phone book, but then he obviously doesn't want to be found, seeing as he gave them the wrong number. I wonder if the bill collectors were calling for him too? I wish he would pay his bills or at the very least give these people a different number! :D