Wrong Number

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I thought I’d try something different this week, as a change from posting music. I see quite a few posts from fellow bloggers taking part in prompted link ups, but the only regular series in which I take part is my weekly foray into Song Lyric Sunday, which you may have seen. Here’s my contribution for this week, in case you missed it. I first posted in that back in June 2022 and have now completed 82 pieces for it: I rather enjoy it! But it’s time for me to try something new.

This piece is for the weekly Writer’s Workshop, which is hosted by John Holton. One of his suggested topics this week is to write about a wrong number telephone call we have either made or received, and this has reminded me of a story from my past. It’s similar to the one John tells in his post about it, but that’s not stopping me from telling mine!

I got married in August 1975, and we were lucky enough to be able to rent a flat from our local council to make our first home. It came with a telephone connection already installed – not a given in those days – and whilst we enjoyed being able to use it we began receiving a load of calls from people thinking we were someone else. I asked one of them who he wanted, and it turned out that it was a hotel near Stansted Airport, about fifteen miles from our home. Back then there was no internet with readily available information at our fingertips, so we had to do a little detective work. The library couldn’t help much, but a local travel agent gave us a copy of a promotional brochure that the hotel published. We could tell from this that there were similarities in the numbers – in fact, it was the same area code and our number, although elsewhere in the brochure they also gave their correct number! We rang them to ask them to correct the error and republish the leaflet, but they didn’t seem inclined to do anything. So we wrote to them – and I’m still awaiting a reply to my letter. Perhaps after 48 years I should give up hope?

The calls kept coming through, around one or two a month, and most people could be persuaded to look at the other part of the brochure and call the right number. Some were more insistent, though, and I was once accused of lying! So Plan B formed in my mind. I think I did this a couple of times when people wouldn’t take no for an answer: I took their booking. I was hoping that guests turning up without a booking, who thought they had one, would persuade the hotel to extract their communal digit, but we still got them. Then one day when I was at home on my own, I took this to another level.

Several of the calls we had received in previous months had been from a Swedish airline booking accommodation for their staff on a layover from the airport. Memory is a little hazy on the details but this is the gist of the conversation:

Caller: I’d like to book a room for our pilot and co-pilot, please.

Me: Would that be one room or two?

Caller: Just one.

Me: Are they good friends?

Caller: What do you mean?

Me: Do they need a double or twin room?

Caller: Twin please.

We went through the details of the ‘booking’ and then I dropped in my coup de grâce:

Me: Would your pilots like to avail themselves of our extra service?

Caller: What service?

Me: This is a very discreet service that we only offer to certain guests, but we can arrange for company to be provided to cater for any further needs your pilots might have.

Caller; You mean…

Me: Yes, anything they would like.

Caller: I don’t think that would be appropriate. They are both happily married men.

By this point I was having difficulty stifling laughter at the way this was all being taken as a serious conversation, but I managed to keep it together long enough to complete the ‘booking.’ I thought that I might get an irate call from the hotel at some point, but we never did hear from them. Funnily enough, though, we didn’t get any more calls from the airline after that, so maybe the krona had finally dropped? Or maybe they were so offended that they took their business elsewhere? To be honest, I couldn’t have cared less!

See, I’ve managed to write a whole post without playing any music – a real novelty for me! Maybe I’ll try it more often.

Normal service will be resumed on Sunday 😊🎶

52 thoughts on “Wrong Number”

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  6. Oooh gosh! 😂😂 This cracked me up! You are baaad! LOL! Sounds like it did a better job than your letter did! 🤣
    Makes me wonder what they said to their co-workers after hanging up on you.
    I like this Writing side of you. 🙂

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    • Months of annoyance just got to me! We did still get a few more, just not from the airline.

      I’d wondered that too. I’m hoping they stopped using the hotel completely as there were others in the area. Sweet revenge!

      Thank you for the compliment. This has had a good response so maybe I’ll do more of it.

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  10. A nice interruption from our regular scheduled programming.

    I assume you have to deal with annoying phone calls from annoying telemarketers on your side of the pond; they are rampant here. One of my friends loves to play along by doing this: the telemarketer launches into their spiel. Partway through, my friend interrupts and says in his most sincere voice, “This is so interesting, but I’m afraid I’m just going out the door. Why don’t you give me your home phone, I’ll call you back tonight when we can discuss it more.” He says you can usually hear a pin drop. 🤣

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    • Thanks, Pete. I thought it was about time I did something different!

      Yes, we have those, and your friend has a good way of dealing with them. My landline provider has a service which allows me to check unknown numbers before I accept a call, which blocks most of them anyway. And very few use my mobile number – I guess they need to know the geographic location, which that doesn’t give them.

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      • I don’t know how telemarketers do this, but their numbers will often come up on Caller ID as local numbers when they aren’t. Apparently, there’s is a hack for just about anything.

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      • That happens here too. I think they have systems that re-route the calls to make them look local. That still doesn’t help them if unknown numbers are blocked though 😊

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  11. Great response to a prompt post. I think back in the day when telephones were rotary dial that a lot of people’s fingers slipped when they were dialing, resulting in a lot of wrong numbers being dialed. You should write more of these Clive as you have a talent for this.

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  14. Great story, Clive. We often get people phoning for 2lb mince or 6 chicken drumsticks, as we have a very similar number to the butcher’s shop in our village. I’ll take part in this today, as I have a story of my own. Thanks for sharing.

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