Dave's not here man

You know how you get to keep your cell phone number when you switch carriers?  What they don't tell you is your previous carrier may give your phone number to someone else, so you both have the same phone number.  Anyone who calls the number using your old carrier will get the person who was just assigned your phone number.  Anyone who calls using a landline or any other carrier winds up calling you.

This happens to me three or four times a year.  Usually it lasts two days and is no more than a minor inconvenience for the person with my phone number, while I don't particularly care and, if I feel like answering the phone, tell the callers what happened.  Over the last two weeks it's been alternately annoying and amusing for me.  I have no idea what it's been like for the very popular B., as it took him long enough to both get a new phone number and let everyone know what it is.

I wasn't up to talking on the phone most of the time, but they couldn't get a clue from my voicemail message that I'm not B.  I kept seeing the same phone numbers on the list of missed calls.  B.'s wife kept calling because she didn't update her contact list.  Only one person left a message, and he had just got out of jail.

The jailbird called the other night asking for B.  I tried to explain what happened and he couldn't quite understand it, because he kept asking for B.'s new phone number.  He said he had a wad of cash and wanted a big bag of pot.  That certainly explained why he couldn't grasp the situation, why B. is so popular, why it took so long for B. to get a new phone number and inform everyone he knows what it is, and why no one could take a hint from my voicemail message that I'm not B.

After telling this guy several times I didn't know B.'s phone number or where he could buy some pot he got pissed off at the world, ranting about the Mayans and 2012, and got pissed off at me.  He told me that everyone I know will die some day, that I'll die some day, and so forth along those lines before hanging up.  I think he was trying to harsh my buzz or something.