Pickles by Brian Crane for May 14, 2013

Reminds me of the time some security company called. Guy said, “How you feeling today?”I said, “Safe”, and hung up.

She’s really starting to suffer from old timer’s disease, isn’t she? Now me, I only have sometimer’s disease.

Is this the Krusty Krab? No, this is Patrick.

Wrong number Opal.

I used to get calls for a dentist who had a similar phone number. I couldn’t understand why because my outgoing message said, “I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone – I’m feeding my pet boa constrictor.”

Finally, I visited the dentist’s office (a few blocks from my home). I told the receptionist that my outgoing message didn’t sound like a dentist’s message. The receptionist asked me to com into the waiting room where I saw several cages of boa constrictors..

Our phone number was one digit off from the number of the Buckhorn, a local tavern. Lots of interesting calls on Saturday night — mostly on the order of“Is my husband Bill there?”“No, you have…”“You lying !#^$*. Tell that *&$^% to kick that !#$^$ floozy off his &#$(%# lap and get his cheating *%#%$ home!”

@BrandeX Relax – it was a TV comedy show..

For a couple of years I answered the phone with “Telephone…” instead of “Hello?”Kind of stopped callers in their tracks.

I used to get calls for the IRS office.

Our number used to be a gas station’s. We’d get calls like this – Can you jump me?

And, it’s one digit different than an auto dealer’s. People are always surprised that we don’t have a service department. I eventually took to telling them to be more careful and hit the 1 instead of the 4. You’d think they’d get a clue when the phone was answered “hello” instead of “business name.”

My unlisted phone number was actually in the phone book as an after hours contact for a car dealer. After getting frustrated at car owners calling my number I decided to just answer their questions. One guy called and asked where his car was. I told him “on the moon”. He did not like that answer and I asked him why he was calling me, a private residence. That’s when I found out my number was in the phone book. The phone company gave me a new phone number free of charge.

I also used to get the same caller asking for so-and-so. To be polite, I kept telling them they had the wrong number. After the umpteenth time, I finally told them the person they wanted was not home, which prompted the next question. “When will she be home?” I replied, “never”. That person never ever called again.

We used to have a similar number to JC Penney’s — 4300 instead of 3400. We were always getting phone calls for them. At least once a week we would get somebody who would argue with us over the phone that they had the right number and we were the wrong ones.

When we moved out of state, we left a forwarding message with the phone company with our new number. We still got calls for JC Penney’s, only then we could laugh at them for getting stuck with a Long Distance charge.

Folks used to call us when they meant to call Green’s IGAThey asked our hours, weekly sales, price of assorted items

We learned the answers and just answered correctly

We all make mistakes, might as well show grace to others

One time in college the phone rang around three in the morning“Is Susan there?”“Who?” as if it would have made a difference.“Susan.”I looked around the tiny room “No but I wish she wuz.” I figured then she, whoever she was, could have answered the phone.“I must have the wrong number.”“Yeah, must be it.”CLICKNot even an appology

For years, we got calls for a TV repair service whose number we apparently acquired after he moved to another part of town. One day he called to thank us, and gave us his new number to pass on to callers (primitive call forwarding?) When our TV broke down, he made a house call to fix it, and didn’t charge us.

There was a young woman once who had a phone number similar to my mobile phone. I kept getting all sorts of messages for her. If I answered the usual conversation went (me) “Hello?” (Them) “Uh … Uh” I have a Bass voice, no way to mistake it for a woman’s. Eventually I recorded the answering message in my own voice instead of the default message. That ended the wrong calls.

When I was a kid we got calls for a pizza place that had a similar number but my mom would not let us have any fun with it. We were to simply tell them they had the wrong number.

In college, my then-girlfriend (we’re married now) and her roommate were cursed with a phone number that was one digit off from a local radio station that ran a lot of call-in contests. I have a big deep “radio” voice, and sometimes I would answer their phone for them; if the person on the other end said “What number caller am I?” or “Is this KXXX?” I’d DJ it up and say, “Yes, and YOU’RE our WINNER!” Then I’d tell them to come by the station to claim their prize.

At one time, I began to get phone calls in the wee hours. Heavy breathing and sordid remarks tagged him as an obscene caller.So when I was ready to go to bed at night, I set my phone to forward calls to another phone number.So when he called me again, he heard this response: “Sheriff’s office.”He never called me again.

Another time another obscene caller make the mistake of calling me. I immediately began to lecture him, saying "How very rude of you to call me at this hour! Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to get back to sleep when you awaken me in the middle of the night? Have you no consideration of others? How would you feel if someone made late calls to you at this hour?………………………………..………….. Dead silence………… He never called again (he probably thought he had accidentally called his mother.)

Pleas disregard the repetition. I didn’t post it twice — Gocomics did. And I know this is a fact, because I’ve seen other repetitions. We may be stupid, but we’re not THAT stupid!

I keep a air horn next to the phone…

At one time my phone number was only one digit away from Moviefone. After a while I just started looking up the show times in the paper and giving the info to the callers. After a while I really got into it and started imitating the Moviefone voice while talking. Eventually they found out about it and tracked me down and they were pissed!

We used to have a teenage crank caller, who’d see us come home and call. He’d say, “Is Kelly there?” At first I’d get upset at him, then finally thought better of it. I’d say, “No, she’s stepped out, but I’ll tell her you called.” That seemed to satisfy his need for human contact, and we kept that up till we moved or he grew out of it. We called him “the Kelly caller.”

At our next place, we were one number off from a teenage girl whose name I forget. I finally found out her number and asked her to tell her friends her correct number, and gave them her number when they called. Finally that died down. Now we have an answering machine.

I need this sometimes.

I love it, Opal!

I always get recorded phone calls on my mobile and on the house phone.

But never calls like this… Yet.

LOL xxx

My folks’ phone number, growing up, was two digits reversed from a major department store’s and Dad eventually started responding to calls creatively, like the shrill GIVE ME SECURITY! with the very mildest, Why, sir; are you insecure?

And then a friend misdialed, knew his voice on the spot and was shocked into silence a moment: “I didn’t know you worked at Woody’s now!” (As if!!!)

Got a call doing a survey for a political party – they asked if I was a republican, democrat or independent. I said “no”. After a long pause, they hung up.. Must not have had that as an option……

Years ago, I decided to prank a neighbor. I had no idea she had been getting nasty calls. So using my best dirty caller voice I asked, “Are you nekkid?” I’ve heard some foul language before, but she would have burned the devil’s own ears. Later we had a good laugh. My wife was over there. Shecame home telling me about it. I owned up to it. She laughed and tthat’s when we told the neighbor.

Our phone number is one off from a local Jenny Craig’s weight loss center. Fortunately, nothing embarrassing was ever discussed, but it can be a pain sometimes.

For years we had a number with a 2 digit transposition from the local game butcher/meat locker. We didn’t get a lot of calls, but hunters are evidently nice people, because I don’t recall anything unpleasant, and even a couple of nice conversations.

But then I changed cell phone providers, and the excrement got into the air distribution system. Somehow they managed to cross my number (which I’d had several years), and some other poor sod’s, and his and my calls were being routed to each other. Or something – it was very confusing and quite irritating, but then one day the thing rang, and it was again my phone and the guys phone acting independently, but he was actually on the other end. We traded stories, ‘real’ phone numbers, and agreed that another call to the provider, from each of us, was in order. He seemed like a really nice guy, we had a good laugh over it. As frustrating as it was, it was pretty ridiculous.

We each started calling the company every time our phones hiccuped, and they did get it fixed in short order. I’ve never had any other problem with them, must have had their service now for nearly ten years. Now using a Smart Phone, the gods help me. They have excellent phone support, and I would heartily recommend them to anyone who wants a cheap, tailored service, but I’m not sure what GoComics policy is on that; so you are kind of on your own – but AARP might give you a pointer ;-)

Opal, I wish I’d thought of that once or twice. Nothing you can do for bot calls that I’ve discovered, or spam texts either.

Banzai: Hey, did we order this dinner to go?Shenzi: No, why?Banzai: ’Cause THERE IT GOES!

Our number was “close enough” and after listening to our “You have reached Dick & Jane and we’re not able to answer…” message, people still left messages asking about their unemployment checks/status etc. I guess that explains why they are unemployed!

My old bookstore number was two interior digits reversed from the public library’s. We often got calls for the other. If we could answer the question, we would and never let on, if not we would tell them the proper number..My wife keeps a list of similar numbers to our home phone and informs wrong numbers of the correct number..After getting a very unlisted, emergency use only cell phone, my wife kept getting calls demanding that we return her stolen phone. Finally the phone company let us have another number for it.

You have to admit that Opal was right on the ball with this wrong number.

I, too, use to get calls for Pizza orders..No problemo..“What Do you want on that?”..“Yes,thankyou ,that will be 25 dollars”.I had no qualms about that poor sucker going down there and getting that “What the hell are you talking about you didn’t order here?” look..hee..hee..

I live in a one-area-code state and my phone’s exchange prefix is the same as one of the next state’s area codes… I’m constantly having to tell people to dial a 1 before the rest of the number.

There’s one lady halfway across the state (I reverse-searched the number) who I think must’ve died because she stopped calling me about a year ago.

I had an obscene call. I made as if I were hard of hearing, and asked the boy to repeat what he said. Again, same thing, Couldn’t hear him. Please speak up!!! He was finally yelling into the phone, and a buddy told him to hang up, as he was making an idiot of himself. Best laugh for me.