Caller ID Bullies

Twice in the last week we received telephone calls from bullies who have seen our telephone number appear on their call display who have then called us to find out what we wanted.

In the first case, my husband had misdialled his parents' phone number -- dialing the last two digits as 11 instead of 15. As soon as he realized the dialling error, he hung up and proceeded to call his parents, dialling correctly, of course. Fifteen minutes after the original error call, our telephone rang. "Why did you call me?," the stranger demanded.

This evening, the telephone rang about 6:15 p.m. "May I speak to Mr. Henderson," an older man asked. "I beg your pardon?" I replied. "Mr. Henderson. He called here today and I want to know why." Huh?

Since when did your telephone number became your private property? I've got news for these Caller ID Bullies -- a telephone number is loaned to you by the telephone company while you are leasing their service. It is not your sole domain. Perhaps you can post a "no tresspassing" sign on your telephone to stop telemarketers from calling, but sometimes it's just a wrong number. Nothing like pointing out another human being's failings by calling them up on a misdialled number. Let's remember that Caller ID generally also reports how many times that number has called your phone. We're not talking stalkers here. It's just a wrong number, thank you very much.

To the Caller ID Bullies: if I wanted to talk to you, Asshole, I would have left a message.

But thanks for calling.