First call of the day  was someone saying “YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE.” I don’t remember what I said but his response was “ANYONE WHO WOULD ANSWER THIS PHONE IS AN ASSHOLE.” That was a zesty start to this Monday.

Next call was from someone in South Texas saying he was watching a couple more busloads of illegal aliens head from Texas to New York. “ENJOY THE ILLEGALS!”

I just noticed that a call from an upper east side dude, his phone number is almost identical to the number I had when I lived on the UES. Just two digits switched. There’s something to be done with that. A wrong number operetta. I program a PBX to robodial numbers close to all my former numbers, asking for me. It would make great energy.

There is something intricately complex about a phone number. Not just the front end it provides to the phone system itself but, at times, the number’s age and thus its owners age.

But then the possibillity of a wrong number. WHo knows whose soul you rattled with the possibility that someone was actually calling them? That sense of importance, anticipation, all deflated when the truth is revealed.