Dear dimwit on the phone

How would she know how old you look if she's on the phone?

 

Column mug in the paper.

 

Hey, Hometown Juco Super Football Booster, the big storms were here in southeast Kansas last night. Nothing happened out by Wichita. So why the hell would you call anyone, much less me, to ask if a game by Wichita will still be played? You do realize Wichita's roughly 180 miles west of here?

Also, who gave you my home phone number? Because on Monday afternoon, the first thing I'll need to do when I get to the office is kick their ass.

 

Can't believe you got that call at home. Hope whoever gave the guy your number realizes just how dumb a mistake that was.

 

Are you in the phone book? Or, Google your own name - your address might show up. This is how a lady found me at home on a Friday evening to beg for her husband's name to be taken out of a police report.

 

Yep, it's amazing how many people I have tracked down over the years by using the phone book. Especially if your name isn't Smith.

 

Had a drunk asshole calling is nonstop during the Toledo/Wyoming game yesterday for updates.
Our agate guys kept trying to tell him we didn't know the score but that wasn't good enough for him. I guess telling him we don't know was good enough...over and over and over again.
It's great and all that he wants us to be his first source of information, but harassing us the whole game doesn't do much to us being nice to him.
I told our guys to push the guy to our website which updated the score or our beat writer's Twitter...but we figured if the guy is calling a newspaper for updates, he probably isn't very high-tech.

 

Who still has a land line? That's your first mistake.

 

I've never had a land line and my cell isn't in the book. Someone at work had to give it to him.

Just to see, I did google myself. Oddly enough, the first result was a different guy with the same name. My Twitter came up as did my Facebook, but I have my phone number locked so that only I can see it. That leaves me to conclude that someone at work gave it to him.

 

I don't, which made it odder.

 

Series of emails today, after which I didn't know if I should laugh or cry:

Reader: "Which channel will be carrying the Springfield-Shelbyville game?"
HSSE: "That will be on Cablecrap Hometown Network, Channel 104."
Reader: "One more question. Do you have to have Cablecrap to get that channel?"
Reader: "Yes, it's Cablecrap's network, not over the air. But the Podunk Tech game next month will be on Podunk's Own TV4."

 

I once got a call at home from an over-zealous reader asking if I was doing to cover some nonsense thing that the paper had no interest in doing. The call woke me up from a sound sleep at 8:30 on a Saturday morning after I'd worked a Friday night shift that didn't end until nearly 2 a.m. Moral of the story: Have an unlisted number.