The Telephone Book Mystery

   It's that time of year again, when the new telephone directories come out. Over the years, I have come to dread this annual event.  We have lived in our little house for nearly 23 years now. We moved in during 4th of July weekend in 1990.  We have also had our phone number for that long too, since we moved from another town.

   Yet every year, after the new phone books come out, we start getting the phone calls. They are all wrong numbers, but the people calling to make an appointment at Mr. Lou's Hair Salon don't know that. Yup, every stinking year an ad appears in our local yellow pages directory for this hair salon, complete with our phone number. This hair salon does not, in fact, exist any more, if it ever did.

   I get so tired of telling people this little fact. I have toyed with the idea of booking their appointments, and letting them try and look for the place. But what I really wonder about is this: doesn't it cost money to have an ad in the yellow pages? And who is paying for this ad for over 20 years, for a defunct business, with our phone number attached?

   You may ask, what brought this on today? I was laying in bed this morning, Hubs had recently gotten home from work. He was out in the living room, watching TV and relaxing, when I heard the phone ring. When he came in to go to bed, I asked him who called, and he told me that some sweet old lady was looking to get her hair done at Mr. Lou's. And so it begins again.

   I can understand that some wrong numbers are simply misdials. We sometimes get calls for the school bus garage in the Wappingers school district. Apparently they were trying to dial 226-XXXX, and hit the 9 instead of the 6. It can happen. I knew someone, I forget now who it was, but their number was one digit off from the local IRS office phone number. So they have a busy time of year for wrong numbers too.

   These people have even left messages on our answering machine when we aren't home. If the phone number was for a business, wouldn't the answering machine greeting say so? I promise, this year I will try to be patient. I won't book their appointments. I will explain politely that there is no Mr. Lou's Hair Salon, that we have had this number for over 20 years. But it really is getting old.