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June 4th, 2007

Wrong number

blah blahSomeone called me on my mobile telephone. They were not speaking English and they asked for someone I had not heard of. I told them that I thought that it was likely that they had the wrong number. They did not comprehend and so the conversation continued. Eventually they understood what I was saying, but insisted that they did not have the wrong number, before hanging up.

Perhaps they were right – perhaps it was I who had the wrong number. On a related note: a month or so ago my wife accidentally sent a text message to an old mobile telephone number of mine. The number is defunct, though I still have the old SIM card in my possession. To her surprise someone answered her text, and obviously wanted to know who it was who was doing the texting. It took a few text messages back and forward to sort out the confused situation.

The fact of the matter is that when you buy a mobile phone these days you are probably being given someone elses old number. Conversely when you stop using a telephone number someone else will be given it. There are not enough numbers in the world, so they need to be recycled.

There is a deep and profound message to all of this, but I have not yet thought of it. Oh yes – Make the most of your telephone number while you have it, because one day you might have a different one.

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This is a single post on the Cartoon Blog by Dave posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 11:01 pm. Click here to read all of the latest posts. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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8 Responses to “Wrong number”


  1. Maria Palma says:

    Yes, I’m sure it does mean something. A friend of mine called a wrong number one day and ended up getting a business deal out of it…Nothing is by accident!

    June 5th, 2007 at 12:39 am
  2. Jane R says:

    Oh, I don’t know. I volunteer for my college’s sexual assault response hotline and we carry a mobile phone when we are on duty — the number gets transferred around to the person on duty — and apparently it is the former number of a nursery (the tree-growing kind, not the child kind) so I have gotten at least two calls wanting to order many pounds of mulch! Better that of course than getting a call from a student who has been raped.

    June 5th, 2007 at 1:31 am
  3. thomas bushnell, bsg says:

    once many years ago i was with my parents for Christmas, and a woman unknown to us called, asking for another person unknown to us. the poor woman desperately wanted to speak to her dearest friend on Christmas, and insisted that this was simply the only number she had for her. my parents had this phone number for perhaps thirty years, and it was impossible that the caller had the right number ever. nobody had ever had that number but my parents.

    the caller was sure, however, and called more than once in desperate frustration. it was very sad and we did not know what to think. i still don’t; i think of this unknown woman and her Christmas desire to call this important friend.

    June 5th, 2007 at 5:06 am
  4. MB says:

    Of course it’s more fun if the person whose mobile number you inherit is more famous than you are – here’s someone who got American Comedian Chris Rock’s mobile number.

    June 5th, 2007 at 6:43 am
  5. ruth says:

    With land-lines they used to lengthen the number when they’d run out of numbers. So when we moved to Shropshire in the 1970s, our phone number was only three digits long. (The man who lived opposite us was called James Bond and his phone number was 007, and that is no word of a lie).
    By the time we left in the 1990s our phone number was 6 digits long.

    I hope that they don’t change my mobile phone number. I’ve had it for donkeys now, along with my mobile phone which is as big as a brick (almost) and gets lots of incredulous stares. It still works, why change it!?

    June 5th, 2007 at 9:30 am
  6. JT says:

    Today, 007 is the prefix for Russia, Tajikistan, Kyrgystan* and a couple of other -stans. Has Mr Bond defected?

    I once got a voice mail in a foreign language, and I recognised the last word “parakalo” as being Greek, so I got my Cypriot colleague to listen. It was a message from his mum.

    *Kyrgystan – 9 letters but only 1 vowel!

    June 5th, 2007 at 10:58 am
  7. Richard says:

    We’re using Vonage to maintain a Canadian phone number that reroutes to our number over here – that has fairly obviously been reallocated too, as we’ve had someone from the Medicine Hat Registry phone up about a car registration, and someone phone up about some unpaid bill. Usually takes quite a bit of explaining to get over that we’re thousands of miles away…

    June 5th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
  8. Carolyn says:

    When we first moved to Florida we were given a phone number that had previously belonged to a man who had gone into inner city ministry. We got several calls for him from distressed persons wanting prayer. So, we would pray with them and talk to them.

    After a couple of months we met the man at the home of some friends from our new church so were were able to forward his calls after that.

    June 5th, 2007 at 2:20 pm