The Slice Playing The Numbers Game
Ring, ring, ring.
“My most interesting wrong number call happened about six months ago,” wrote Michelle Peterson of Post Falls. “A man rang my number by mistake. Before being certain it was, indeed, his wife, he proceeded to tell her in loving yet graphic terms what he wanted to do that evening after the twins were asleep.
“He continued in detail for a few minutes. I honestly couldn’t get a word in edgewise and really thought it was a prank. He then said ‘Honey does that sound good to you?’ When ‘Honey’ didn’t answer, he said ‘Bev? Beverly! Beverly, I asked if that sounds enjoyable to you.’
“Finally, I could say something! I said ‘This is Michelle, not Beverly. It sounds fun to me. But don’t you think we should get to know each other first?’
“He laughed and apologized for his error and hung up.”
Ruth Gruennert once had a guy trying to reach a woman named Mary Lou accuse her of “talking like a Yankee” in an attempt to disguise her identity and get rid of him.
When future Gonzaga University basketball star Jeff Brown was still in high school, he once called the wrong Kinder household. “He and my husband had a very pleasant 15 minute conversation about sports in general and basketball in particular,” recalled Melody Kinder. “We couldn’t convince my daughter, who was in high school also, to talk to him, however.”
Chattaroy’s Kay Burgin was trying to reach her brother in Seattle when she misdialed at 6 a.m. “Never did reach my brother but I had a very pleasant conversation with a young man I did not know.”
Other readers told of answering the phone and being surprised by wrong-number questions including “Have you got worms?”, “Are you the guy with the shakes?” and “Do you have screws up there?”
Virginia Anderson once had someone trying to call 9-1-1 somehow dial her number instead. Another reader informed a caller that he had the wrong number and then heard the pinhead who had misdialed snap “Well, what did you answer it for then?”
We heard about a message postponing a romantic rendezvous left on the wrong answering machine. And then there was the call to a wrong number at 2 a.m., from a guy who said he had just used his last quarter trying to reach his girlfriend. So the reader who told us about it phoned his girlfriend for him and told her where to go pick him up.
Small World Department: Dave Spilker was in Venezuela on business when he stepped out of a taxi cab and smelled something familiar in the air.
“My guide said ‘Oh, it’s just the season when the farmers burn their cane fields. Everybody complains about it. But the farmers claim they need to do it, so they do.”’
Today’s Slice question (for those who don’t have white bread last names like Turner): Compared to other places, how would you rate the Spokane area when it comes to people’s attitude about your name?
, DataTimes MEMO: The Slice appears Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; fax (509) 459-5098.