867-5309

It started 3 or 4 years ago. Whenever it was that I finally broke down and got my first cell phone. The daughter and I were off the island for the day and I just decided enough was enough, I was moving up to this century. I stopped in Radio Shack and got a Verizon cell phone with a two year plan. Less than a half an hour later, as we were on our way to a tour of The Breakers, the phone rang. Curiosity piqued, I answered only to be asked if Henry Rodriguez were available. Um, sorry folks, this is not Henry Rodriguez. It lasted for over a year. At first I tried to be understanding, even though I wasn't. Obviously Henry Rodriguez used to have the number, stopped paying all his bills and now everybody was calling me. Sometimes even at 2 in the morning. I would patiently explain to these people that this was my new cell phone and I had no knowledge of Henry and please stop calling. I even went so far as to return an attorney's message left on my phone to let them know that this no longer was Mr. Rodriguez's number and they needed to stop leaving messages on my phone! Obviously, dealing with the multitudes of the milk of human kindness as they did, they believed me instantly and were most gracious in thanking me for my honesty and assistance. About the time I decided to dump the Verizon phone, the creditors for Henry Rodriguez stopped calling. In Maine, I started with a pay as you go phone. As I was driving in the car just a few days after purchase, I had the opportunity to chat with a local sheriff looking for somebody who had given the number as his. He was a little miffed at the situation, but at least he was polite to deal with. Then when I switched to my next phone...well, actually nothing happened with T Mobile. But there was all the phone calls in Maine for the former owners of the house when we were supposed to have been given a new number, not the same number that the previous owners had used for nine years! And once I moved here to Minnesota, it didn't even take a full week before I started receiving the creditor's calls for Israel Mendez, and now for Stephen Culls.

It had been my intention to keep these numbers forever and ever and ever since I'm putting so much time into "cleaning" them - if you will. But it seems that my T Mobile won't change area codes with me. I can't wait to find out what non-bill paying idiot my next number used to (maybe) belong to.

Perhaps I'm just not meant to be this century.