I’m sorry, you have the wrong number

I can remember every telephone number I’ve had since I was 2 years old–home, work, and mobile. There are 23 in all.

I have a good memory for details, but another large factor is that I occasionally think “hey, I can remember every telephone number I’ve had since I was 2 years old,” and then I think of all of them. That’s a big reinforcer, of course.

My telephone number at my first apartment was a simple transposition away from the Residence Inn (I was 837-8709, and they were/are 837-8907). I got eight or ten calls a week for them. Sometimes I thought about making fake reservations and the like, but I never did. These were people making simple and understandable mistakes–hardly deserving targets of something so heartless and potentially disrupting.

My next place was 772-7190, and the Madison Police Department was/is 722-7190. I didn’t get quite so many wrong numbers there. When I did, I never considered any foolishness, because a) people calling police are often having a bad day already; and b) I’m pretty sure there are laws against impersonating law enforcement officers.

It’s been useful knowing that number off the top of my head, though. I called MPD from the truck to report a stepladder in the center westbound lane of I-565 just a month or so ago. I probably wouldn’t have bothered had I not just known the number.

I had three more numbers before I got the one I have now, and had no regular wrong numbers.

But now, I get occasional belligerent wrong numbers. It seems my current number (which I picked myself, by the way) used to belong to someone who ran up a lot of bad debt. So I get collections calls asking for her, and when I say “You’ve got the wrong number,” I’m frequently not believed. “You don’t know her?” the caller says. “No,” I say. “Who am I speaking with, please?” the caller says. I give my full name. Sometimes I also share when I bought my house, when I acquired this telephone number, what I do for a living, and the fact that I’ve never even so much as bounced a check, much less made a late payment or defaulted on anything.

“You really do have the wrong number,” I say. “It hasn’t been hers for some time. Please remove this telephone number from her record in your system. I have no idea who she is, and I don’t care for your agency to call me again looking for her.” That’s usually enough. I did end up yelling and cursing at one jackass who wouldn’t quit, though. I wasn’t putting one over on him, by God. When I finished my directions to him with “Do you understand?” he hung up.

Lea fielded our first one in probably a year tonight. That’s a reasonably strong indicator that more are to come.

You might also like:

• Real or imaginary childhood? Does it matter?
  I’ve learned that I have an unusually good memory for details. Blogged about that before. I can reme…
• Public school, philosophy on good government, mobile telephone voice mail, getting along…
  I don’t give my mobile telephone number out much, and it’s mostly because I don’t live and die by my…
• Mental slippage
  Don’t you love those unambiguous signals that you’re getting older? I don’t mean pasta-fueled ass sp…
• Memory atrophy
  I started carrying a PDA everywhere in 1998. Part of the reason was that they had arrived as a techn…
• Happily married means no Plan B
  I used to enjoy listening to Dr. Laura at work. I didn’t always agree with her, and given that a big…