One ringy dingy

Posted on December 21, 2005 by Gene

When I moved to California from the DC area, I took my phone number with me. I’d had it for a while, and I’m not good at memorizing numbers, so it seemed logical. Plus, everyone back home could call me on the same local number like always, sort of like I was still there. The magic of voice-over-IP makes this possible.
But in the last few months, I’ve really noticed a major drawback to this plan: wrong numbers.
I get a wrong number on my DC line about 3 times a week lately. The problem with this is that they generally call between 8am and 9am. Eastern time. I’m often jolted awake by the phone ringing at 5:30am. This morning it was from Virginia Hospital Center, so I panicked thinking that something had happened to someone. Nope, just a wrong number.
I also have an 800 number, which constantly gets calls for Commonwealth Telephone repairs, somewhere in Pennsylvania. At 5am.
I might just start turning off my phones at night.