Friday, May 20, 2005

What's your suffix?

My small town has one phone prefix. The entire state of Oklahoma has only three area codes.

Which makes it easy when giving out your phone number to anyone local, since all you have to tell them is the last four digits of your phone number.

If they say, "huh?" or "what?" or they look like they're confused or waiting for you to finish, then you know that they probably don't live in your small town.

It's taken me awhile to not cite my entire phone number when someone asks for it here in OK. The southern California area has so many different area codes you just automatically rattle off the 10-digit string when spewing forth with your phone number.

The other day, I misdialed, realized I had, and hung up. Seconds later, I received a call from an "unknown" number.

I didn't answer it.

A few moments later, I received a call from that same, unknown number. Didn't answer it.

Still later, same unknown number, same response from me.

An hour or so later, same unknown number. Voice mail message. Got ya.

Here's the message they left me:
"Hi there, um, I just got a call from ya...well, not just, it was earlier today, an I was wonderin' who ya are, and why ya called me, but didn't talk to me."
She continues..."So, anyway, I did this star-sixty-nine thingy and it called ya right back, but ya weren't there, so I was hoping to catch ya to talk with ya, but since you're not there again, I'll just leave ya this message ta let ya know, that I was calling ya back and just wanted to find out why ya called me."
I was amazed that someone would be so interested in a "called-the-wrong-number" phone call that they'd pursue the caller to this extent.

Or maybe she was just bored.
Or maybe she was lonely and bored.
Or maybe she was lonely and bored and just wanted to try out the star-sixty-nine thingy.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This happened to me in LA. We got voicemails "why did you call me and not leave a message?" Because, you moron, I misdialed and I didn't mean to call you. I got a call once HOURS LATER from a guy who said, 'hey, you are on my caller ID but you didn't leave a message. Why did you call me?' I DIDN'T call YOU. Too much technology.

So this, for me, was a big city moment. But without the "y'all".... In an unrelated story, my friend's father invented Call Waiting but his work was unrewarded beyond his measly phone company salary.