Dear Wrong Number

Dear Mr. Wrong Number.

You called me 9 times today. Pretty much, in a row. This is after multiple calls from you all week. Now today, of the nine calls, on two voicemails you left an incoherent message. No, not in a foreign language - I'm usually quite astute to understand the dialect of a particular country. My Korean and Vietnamese's isn't great, but I can usually tell you that a person is speaking. I can tell the differences in the flowing rhythm of Arabic or French over the guttural Dutch or German. No, whatever you're mumbling doesn't make a lick of sense. Pretty sure it wasn't any language that I've ever heard before.

And I have issue with the 9 calls in a row to listen to my voicemail message. Is it really that good? Are you learning the English language through my voicemail message? As flattered as I am, there are better and more effective, and much cheaper ways to learn English than calling my voicemail. I would try Rosetta Stone or Sesame Street over my voicemail.

See, ever since you started calling my number at 3AM, and since I couldn't figure out how to block your number, I decided it would be easier just to add you as a contact. Then, I named your contact as 'WRONG', so I wouldn't be tricked into thinking you were a friend, a relative, an old college roommate, the IRS, or a collection agency tracking me down for the damage that I caused. No I would talk to those people. You're going on the big board of contacts as 'WRONG'. Then, with my new-fangled phone, I found the setting where I checkmarked the option for you to go straight to voicemail.

There are still a few things I can't work out, though.

Seven of the nine times, today, you stayed through the entire message, so that a little bit of breathing could be picked up from your reciever into the voicemail and it registered it as a 'message' -- which then identified you as a caller who has left me a message. In two of the messages, as I mentioned, there was a bit of a garbled message, and the second one was a bit truncated. Couldn't make any of it out. Not sure I wanted to. This was kind of excruciating to have to delete seven voicemail messages from you. I'm sure these were all costing my minutes, real and phone minutes.

Another thing I can't work out is why, after nine attempts today, and forty nine attempts the last couple days, maybe even weeks, you either haven't realized that I'm not the party you're looking for, or perhaps you're incapable of dialing a telephone? It's not hard. And frankly, if you can't perform this simplest of tasks, I fear what other modern conveniences you're currently trying to master. It boggles the mind what kind of damage you could do to my fellow human beings. I have this terrible feeling that you're currently behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, and that vehicle transports other people. Perhaps it is yellow? Some checkers on it? I fear the worst.

My friend, you can't dial a phone. You can't reason. You can't speak English, or any other language known to humanity. You haven't deduced that I don't want to talk to you, or return your messages. Not during business hours, or at 3 AM. Or 3:02, 3:05, 3:15, 4:10, 5:13...

Please, pretty please. Enough.

Or I might have to talk to you.