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The Phone That Never Stopped Ringing for Someone Else

“Hello, is Brenda there?” the voice on the other end chirped. I glanced at my phone. Again? It was 2008, and I was brand new to the city, a bright-eyed graduate with a shiny new phone number and even shinier dreams. Little did I know, this phone number came with baggage—Brenda’s baggage.

You see, inheriting a phone number is a bit like moving into a house with the previous owner’s mail still arriving. Except, instead of bills and coupons, I got a constant stream of calls for Brenda, the phantom of phone numbers past.

Wrong Number, Right Person? The Case of the Confused Callers

At first, it was a mild annoyance. Wrong numbers happen, right? I’d politely inform the caller they had the wrong number. But as weeks turned into months, the calls grew more frequent, and stranger. I received calls from:

• A frantic woman demanding to know why Brenda missed their coffee date.
• A chipper salesman trying to sell Brenda timeshares in Boca Raton.
• And my personal favorite, a very official-sounding man asking for Brenda’s social security number. (I politely declined to assist with that one.)

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