Diane, it's for you!

We've been getting calls for this mysterious Diane X since not long after we moved in here. At first I thought it was a telemarketing thing, some new technique to keep the person on the other end of the line (me) from hanging up immediately. Sound like a real person, not a telemarketer! Catch them off-guard! Maybe they'll spend money before they realize what's happening!

I dealt with it the way I always dealt with telemarketers back then. Cut them off as soon as you realize what the call is by saying, "Please put this number on your do-not-call-back list." Then hang up. But it didn't cut down on the number of calls, which was perplexing, because it had always worked before.

Then the national Do-Not-Call list kicked in and we were still getting calls. I was annoyed, thinking this was some attempt to evade the law by pretending to be a wrong number or something. "What, you mean that person doesn't live here? Well, sorry about that. Hey, while we have you on the phone ..."

I kept hanging up, usually before the telemarketer could get more than a couple of words into their first sentence. Until one night the woman on the other end of the line managed to shout into the receiver, "This is NOT a sales call!" (She must have tried to call our number before.)

I stopped my hand on its way down and brought the phone up to my ear again. "Oh? Well, what do want then?"

"Is Diane X there?"

"I'm sorry, there's no-one by that name here."

"Well, is this xxx-xxx-xxxx?"

You know how it went, I'm sure. Yes, this is that number, yes, I'm sure she does not live here, no, I don't know anyone by that name. Goodbye.

After hanging the phone up I thought back, and realized I'd been hearing that name quite a bit. Maybe those weren't telemarketing calls I was getting?

I started paying attention to the calls instead of immediately hanging up. Sure enough, almost all of them were for Diane. They were calling about her application for a mortgage on her vacation home, to check on her credit card application, to offer her a great deal on this and that.

Hmm, I thought, this is fishy. This woman must be running a scam. I bet Diane isn't even her real name. And I started letting the callers know that we got a lot of calls for her. I left it to them to draw their own conclusions.

It finally started to taper off a few months ago. We got our last phone call just before Christmas. I went into my spiel about her not living here and we don't know who she is, when the caller interrupted me. This was her cousin, he told me.

What? Diane was a real person? With a real family?

Sure enough, he said, and there'd been a death in the family. I'd probably be hearing from a lot of her family pretty quick as they tried to contact her and let her know.

They never did. I guess he passed the word around that this wasn't her number. I don't know why the other phone calls stopped. Though I'm grateful they did.

Which should be the end of it, except ...

We've been getting phone calls lately for Rich X. These people aren't offering loans. I think they're trying to collect. They don't sound as cheerful and bubbly as the people calling Diane sounded. These callers are grim, with voices that practically spit granite chips into my ear. They ask me repeatedly if I'm sure Rich doesn't live there, if I'm sure I don't have any idea of his identity.

I don't like the idea of dealing with other people's bill collectors. I'd rather have other people's sales calls.

Diane, where are you when I need you?