You Want To Speak To Who?!?!?

It was a dark and stormy night, actually come to think of it, it wasn't dark, nor was it nighttime, but it was a bit stormy...somewhat steamy (NOT THAT KIND!).

A little background.

Many years ago, My Sweetie had the opportunity to travel somewhere warm on business. This was not something new. He would do his travel thing, and I would go shopping. Typically, it would be a quiet at-home time spent with the cats, or reading, or catching up on house things....or shopping.

So, My Sweetie had been gone maybe a half hour, and the phone rang. Wrong number. Within 15 minutes, the phone rang again. Wrong number. This was starting to happen with great regularity, and I was getting pretty freaked out at this point. Call display was something new to the world, and it came in the form of an external box that sat beside the phone (you guys remember this...don't give me that!). So I began to scroll back, and record the numbers that I had received. I had received 25 calls in one evening. Now, for some of you, this might be normal, but in our house, sometimes we have to pick up the phone to make sure it's still working! We don't get that many phone calls, so this was a large number of calls in an evening. To complicate matters further, the phone calls continued through the night, so that I had to go through the house and turn down all of the ringers, because I couldn't get any sleep.


That had been Friday night. Saturday continued in the same pattern. Many calls, all wrong numbers. I called My Sweetie and told him what was happening, and he couldn't figure it out. I called the phone company and they were totally devoid of helpful information.

Then something really creepy happened. (I hear Skittles thinking here we go again).

The phone rang (yeah so?). It was a guy who had basically said "Hi...I'd like a date." Well, that was it for me. My stomach turned flip flops and I thought that I had just received my first official obscene phone call. Trying to settle myself down, I tried to think (not the best time to try and do that, mind you).

Then, another creepy.

This time, the call was from a guy who had disguised his voice and was talking like Donald Duck! I am not kidding!!! AND, he TOO was asking for a date.

*sigh*

What to do. What to do. Me. Alone with the cats in a big house (which I never really felt safe in anyway). Another night of turning all the phones off. (there goes whatever safety net I had).

On Sunday morning, I was having breakfast, when a light bulb went off. PING! What if these jokers (all men) were trying to reach a number similar to mine. What if it was like a 1-900 number or something like that? Well, I started to look through the Adult Ad section of the newspaper (you know...escorts, massages, and stuff).

Now, you really won't believe this, BUT, there was an ad which displayed the last seven digits of our phone number, but with a 1-900 prefix.

And what, pray tell, was this number associated with?

THE FANTASY HOTEL!!!! And how do I know? Because I called to find out (although it could have very well been hooker paradise or something like that). People were calling my area code and phone number, thinking that they could get the ahem 'service' without paying the 1-900 call fee. (el cheapos).

I called My Sweetie to tell him of my find. He was ecstatic. Of course we had to change our phone number. Somewhere, I still have the clipping of that ad from the paper.

So, if you ever get a call from a guy who sounds like Donald Duck, and is asking for a date, save yourself the time and effort that I went through.

Change your number, pronto!