Hold the Phone

“This is not a sales call. This information is for …Tina Bennett. If you are …Tina Bennett, please press one. If you are not …Tina Bennett, please press two.”

I pressed two.

“If you would like to find …Tina Bennett…and want to hold, please press one. If …Tina Bennett is not available, please press two. If this is not the phone number for…Tina Bennett, please press three.”

I pressed three.

“Please hold while you wait for the next available customer service representative.”

I held because I am not Tina Bennett. I do not know a Tina Bennett, nor have I ever met a Tina Bennett. But apparently,  a Tina Bennett decided to give my home phone number to all of her creditors, and they are now calling my house night and day. No sooner do I hang up from one call to Tina Bennett that the phone rings again, the caller ID showing a phone number that is either unknown or an 800 number. None of these calls is for me or any member of my house. No, they are all for Tina Bennett.

Tina Bennett has received more calls to my house than the entire family combined. Her calls have woken me up on a Sunday morning. They have interrupted my family dinners, and they have made me miss more than one Olympic moment. Tina Bennett, for the love of all things holy, pay your bills and gets these clowns to stop calling my house.

You would think by not answering the phone, it would eventually stop ringing, but no. Those bill collectors are a persistent bunch, and they are not against leaving messages for Tina Bennett. Seriously, folks, do you really think she will call you back? After daily phone calls for over eight weeks, you need to focus your energy on someone else. Tina Bennett is a lost cause.

When we moved to this house five years ago, we were given a new phone number by BellSouth. It was Becky Bowen’s old phone number, and she too was a deadbeat who didn’t pay her bills. For three years, we got weekly phone calls trying to track down Becky Bowen, including a regular follow up from some lawyer in Vancouver. After about three years, the phone calls stopped, although every once in a while an agency will take her account out of dormancy and attempt to harass her again.

For a couple of years, the house was quiet, with only an occasional call for the kids or a distant relative.Sure, the Fraternal Order of Police did their annual drive, and every so often there would be some similar annoyance, political robo calls or the like, but never as frequent as the calls for Becky Bowen had been. We all mourned the loss of the constant phone calls, as if a family member had died, or we had had a fight with our closest friends.

We contemplated getting rid of the home phone number altogether, but decided to keep it, just in case. In case of what, I have no idea, since three out of four of us have cell phones.  If the power goes out or the Rapture comes, you can still look me up in the phone book, which might as well be carved on a stone tablet, and call my house. Nothing makes you feel older than maintaining a home phone. Add twenty years to that old feeling if that phone has a coiled phone cord (all but one of ours is cordless, thank you very much).

And now, out of the blue, it’s been the summer of Tina Bennett.

I sat on hold for a phone call that wasn’t even for me, such was the level of my irritation. As if speaking to the anonymous harasser on the other end of the phone would put a stop to the daily phone calls.

“Hello, am I speaking with Tina Bennett?” a young man said to me, finally taking me off hold.

“No, this is not Tina Bennett’s phone number. You have the wrong number,” I said, almost politely.

Are you ready for the best part?

“Well, can you tell me how to get in touch with Tina Bennett?” he said.

“How would I know?” I shot back. “You’re the one calling the wrong number.”

 Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why not make up a different phone number, like Tina Bennett did, and try calling that one? Or maybe you can go back to school, earn a degree, and try for a better job. Because I am pretty sure that calling wrong numbers for a collection agency wasn’t part of your American dream.

The young man indicated he would update their records, which I doubted, and I hung up, which was mildly satisfying. At least until my tween pointed out how insane it is to sit on hold to yell at some guy for just doing his job, which is what the constant harassment and  endless ringing phone had driven me to do. I should have offered to pay Tina Bennett's bills, just to get them off my back.

Damn you, Tina Bennett.