An Ethical Question

   The other day, when I got home from babysitting, I checked the answering machine. I always check it, it's a habit. You never know when someone will call. Usually, no one ever calls us, or they don't leave a message. Almost all the calls we get on our home phone are from telemarketers.


   Anyway, the other day, there was a message on the machine, so I listened to it. I quickly realized that it was a wrong number. But the old lady who left the message didn't know that. I listened as she rambled on about how good it was to hear from who she thought she was leaving the message for, and how excited she was to get the card. How she thinks of her often, and still keeps in touch with Blah Blah, etc. etc. etc.

   I felt really bad that this poor woman's message didn't get to her intended recipient. I wonder if she will get angry that her call wasn't returned. I wonder if I should call her back, and tell her she left her message on someone else's answering machine. And I guess that is my question: Should I call her back? Wouldn't that be the nice thing to do? I am in a quandary here. I probably won't call her back, but I wonder what will happen if I don't tell her, so she can call the right number.

   I can imagine that old lady #1 gets annoyed at old lady #2. So she calls her again, this time getting the right number. "Why didn't you call me back?" "You never called me..." You can see where this goes. Or, O.L.#2 gets annoyed at O.L.#1 for not responding to the card she sent, so she calls. Hopefully she gets the right number. "I didn't hear from you after I sent you that nice card!" "I sure did, I called you right away!" "You did not, I never got a call from you!" Either way, it gets ugly.

   Would I be responsible for the end of this long time friendship? On the other hand, should I care? And just for illustrative purposes, here is a photo of two old ladies, my mother, on the left, and my daughter Sara's husband's grandmother on the right. They have become close friend since their grandkids married each other!