GalacticMu

Lately I’ve had a rash of of people calling ____ Williams. Carol. Walter. Nancy. None of these, incidentally, are my first name, my middle name, nor the names of anyone in my direct family. Today a woman called for Barbara, and I said my usual: “There is no one here by that name.”

You see, I think these people are guessing at the first name — it’s crazy, I know, but also it isn’t. While Williams is a common last name, it’s not the most common, leading me to believe that the abundance of folks lookin’ for a Williams is in fact clandestine. If someone had called asking for “Amy Smith” I would have told them they had the wrong phone number, as indeed they had. However, when I get a call for “Barbara Williams” my pissy-hackles go up (which are from, coincidentally, the Williams side of the family) and I say slowly, “There is no one here by that name.” What I really want to be saying is, “I’m onto you. You’ve guessed poorly. You get two more guesses.” Because those next two guesses are never going to be right. And I will laugh and laugh and laugh and then hang up on them.

So again, today, I tell the woman on the phone that there is no Barbara at this number. “Ooooooh -kay,” she says in what I can only describe as a ‘cunty’ tone. “What about Kevin, is there a Kevin available?”

“No, there isn’t,” I say. I pulled out ‘frosty’ for my tone adjective.

“Uh-huh,” she says, “Well, that’s weird, I guess they gave me the wrong number.”

She’s right, that is weird, especially curious considering that she seems to be sort of casting about for likely-sounding names. What I don’t understand is how a last name might end up on some calling list, but a first name doesn’t - shouldn’t they be asking for me by my whole name? Or is this some kind of law they are trying to circumvent where they cannot solicit you directly but they can goad you into saying, “This is the Williams household, but…”

“They sure did,” I tell her, and I hang up.

For the last year I’ve lived in an apartment where the postal carrier can’t understand that there used to be a tenant here with the same last name but the first name of Michelle, and that I don’t actually want Michelle’s mail. I understand that it might be hard to comprehend that more than one person in the world - let alone the same apartment complex - has the surname Williams, but indeed there is. I wrote a little note and pasted in inside my post box that says the only two names we can accept mail for, names that are our own. Nevertheless, Michelle’s mail continues to arrive on a weekly basis (the mail has all been the junk variety, but I like to pretend I have principles).

At the end of the day, I wonder if perhaps I shouldn’t just take over for the other Williamses out there. I should answer “Yes, this is s/he,” and then see what business we Williamses are up to. I suppose I owe it to us.

(for unknown reasons I have poured my drink on myself twice while writing this post)