Awkward Phone Calls

Occasionally, we all have to deal with an awkward social situation. Like the other day, a woman standing behind me in line for coffee suddenly blurted out: “How tall are you … six foot five?” When I turned around, she offered by way of explanation: “My son is six foot five.”

How do you respond that? “That must have hurt coming out!”

In these situations, sometimes we’re the ‘do-er’ and sometimes we’re the ‘do-ee.’ Sometimes it’s a little of both.

Recently, I unknowingly dialed a wrong number. When I asked for Diane -- the person I thought I had dialed -- the woman on the other end asked me to repeat the name. “Diane,” I said. She said there was no Diane there. I asked her if the number I had was hers, and she said ‘yes.’ So, I asked again if there was a ‘Diane’ who lived there. This time she said: “Just a minute.”

Okay, I thought, now we’re getting somewhere.

After a ten second pause, a voice came back on the line and said: “This is Diane.” The problem was, it was the same person who had answered the phone!

Why did she pretend to not be Diane, and now she’s pretending to be Diane. What kind of weirdo am I dealing with here? Maybe she thought she’d just go with this conversation in case I was about to tell her she’d won a million dollars.

When I got to the point of the conversation, asking her whether she was looking to hire a band, she said, “No.”

“This is Diane?”

“Yes, but I’m not looking for a band.”

“Okay,” I said, “let me double check my number.” And I hung up.

It was then that I figured out I’d dialed the wrong number. I eventually dialed the right number, talked to the Diane I was supposed to talk to, with a promise that I’d make a follow-up call the next day.

I called the number back the next day, asked for “Diane” and was told in no uncertain terms: “There’s no Diane here!”

I’d dialed the wrong number again.