What do you think you’d do if you got a celebrity’s abandoned cell-phone number? I don’t think I’d do what this girl did — basically, be polite when Spike Lee, Adam Sandler and Ken Burns called, wondering where their friend Chris Rock was — but different strokes, etc. It turns out…celebrities are just like you and me! Only their numbers don’t turn up on your caller ID, and sometimes they’re just rude.
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ashley said on March 7, 2004 at 9:10 pm
My phone number when growing up ended in 7469. That spells S-H-O-W, same as every other cinema in town. We would get bombarded with calls during promotions and such.
As this was the time before caller id, we didn’t have the option to call the perps, so instead we had fun with them.
My father would always tell them that if they made it to the theater in the next 10 minutes, they would get free admission. He usually got a “Really!!! OK, bye!”.
I would tell them we were closed for repairs, that we had a revival that night, locusts, stuff like that. My best was when I told them that tonight was the beginning of our new “all-porno” format. Our feature was Kurosawa’s “Ron”, starring Ron Jeremy.
Finally, the proprietor called and asked if we’d been doing that. I said, of course we did. I told him that I had called previously and the people I spoke with blew me off. He asked how they could make it up to me. I told him we had that number for over 30 years, his was about 3 years old, so we were not going to give up our number.
I suggested that he buy us an answering machine, where we would give his number on the welcome message. He refused.
The next week continued the all-porno format…
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deb said on March 8, 2004 at 12:17 am
our first phone, circa 1966, came with the number previously assigned to the only place in our jerkwater town where you could drink AND eat. (and bowl.) we got calls for this place all the time, and we were good-natured about it. after a decade, though, we started thinking, for the love of god, people, what do you do with the new phone books ohio bell sends you every year? is this number written in crayon on your walls, or what?
so we finally started having some fun, taking massive carry-out orders that would never be filled, or creating marital discord: “yes, this is the buckeye log cabin, and yes, skeeter waits was here a minute ago, but he just left with hoot barber’s ex-wife.”
the log cabin burned down years ago, and my sister is still fielding calls for the place.
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Lex said on March 8, 2004 at 6:19 am
I’ve had the same direct number at work for 16 years, and the guy who had that number before me sits nearby, so for local calls it’s no big deal. But at least once a week I get a call from someone who has made one particular (and particularly easy) misdial in the number prefix and therefore expects to be speaking with a hospital patient in a particular room. Once, after I ID’d myself, I didn’t get the chance to point out that the caller had misdialed before she erupted at me for being in her (recently shot) husband’s hospital room, calling me a vulture, etc., etc. Not nearly as much fun as getting called by Adam Sandler.
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