Dear dimwit on the phone

Almost makes me long of the days when I'd have the gambler calling in on Friday night to talk about spreads for the weekend games and the group of drunk guys calling in to ask NBA trivia and then would pass the phone around to each other begging me to "TELL THIS MAN RIGHT HERE THAT" so that they could settle beer or $5 bets.

 

Every weekend late, we get people calling one of the extensions in the advertising department. Apparently that particular phone's number is very similar to the taxi company and the slightly to heavily inebriated wind up calling us.

 

So you tell them you will be right there, hang up and laugh...right?

 

Staying with the phone theme on a late weekend night:
"No, ma'am, there's no one left in the advertising department. They go home at 5. And, no, I can't take your garage sale ad out of tomorrow's paper."

 

The temptation's always there, but one of the news people usually answers it and tells them they've dialed the wrong number.

 

I remember one particularly irate caller one weekend night. Can't remember exactly what she was pissy about but she got a hold of one of our copy editors and wouldn't let him get off the phone. The dude's face was priceless. Nice guy, didn't do well under that kind of verbal assault. Finally he hangs up on her.

Or so he thought.

I ask him what that exactly was about and he says some crazy bitch was calling in about a mistake about something that I can't fix.

Right after he said it a voice erupted from the phone beside him.

"HELLO!"

His face turns white as he realizes that he accidentally put her on speaker phone instead of hanging up on her. He quickly hangs up correctly this time but not before he turns 10 shades of crimson and everyone around him is dying of laughter.

 

Sticking with the weird phone calls: Every day, without fail, an old guy calls here wanting a run down of the obits. He always asks if so-and-so is in there. Every writer who's ever taken one of his phone calls is always tempted to tell that, yes, the person he's calling about is in the obits just so he'll stop calling.

 

I had an angry mother call me because her daughter's giant head of hair didn't completely fit inside the photo box and made her look awful.

No, your child's freakish tete didn't fit into the tiny one-inch mug shot box on my InDesign page. I line up the ears at the edges and go with it.

I don't know how you guys did it in the late 1980s in the era of Aquanet. Did you EVER get women's entire heads in those boxes?

 

I realize this guy is annoying and what I'm about to suggest is just making more work for someone, but that sounds like the most interesting story in the world. Lifelong grudge? A spurned or long-lost lover? Estranged relative?

 

Maybe he's asking if it's him so he knows he's still alive and not a ghost.

 

Sorry, Cranky Old Lady on the phone, but I won't send you the schedules for the pro teams we don't cover. Either go online and find them yourself, or get somebody who actually has a computer to do it for you. Perhaps the local library?

You have insulted me too many times for me to help you any more. And by the way, the guy who you always managed to talk into doing your bidding (so you'd stop calling) got laid off.

 

I agree. I'd LOVE to read a story about what's motivating him to call so many times about this. Couple be a GREAT feature.