Wrong numbers happen all the time. Normal etiquette dictates that you politely tell the person on the other end that this isn’t who they are trying to reach, and then you both hang up. No harm, no foul. But on occasion, you get that random person who, for whatever reason, just doesn’t get the message. I once had a man leave a two minute long message on my phone, in what I think might have been Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. Another time, a nanny with a thick Eastern European accent gave instructions on when to pick up the kid she was nannying. Both of these provided me with many laughs. But, of all the wrong numbers I have ever received, this past month’s will have been the most memorable.

It started off innocently enough—as innocent as possible given the circumstances. A man called asking to book a massage. I told him it was the wrong number, said good bye, and hung up. A week later, at 11 p.m. I received another message asking about my massage rates. This got me thinking—it’s rather late to be calling about massages. But then I realized that there’s more than one type of massage. Yes, that’s right; men all over Montreal have been calling me requesting to book erotic massages.

Over the span of two and a half weeks I received at least seven calls inquiring about my rates. To each I replied a swift and curt “sorry, wrong number.” Some men were friendly, others were supremely creepy. Some accepted that it was a wrong number, others refused to believe it. One man insisted that I had called him with information and that he was simply returning the call. I informed him that I was positive this was a wrong number; of the two people in this conversation, I should know if I was supplying these services, not him.

Hoping to solve this mystery, I tried to Google my number, but arrived at a dead end. I even attempted a search of Montreal erotic massage places, but after two clicks I was both frustrated and scared. Being the novice that I am in these matters, I was worried that my computer would become tainted somehow, perhaps getting infected with some sort of virus. So I cleared my history and gave it no more thought. 

That lasted two days. Then, at 4 a.m., my phone rang. My sister, who lives with me, was the one to answer the phone this time. Sure enough, it was a man asking for a massage. It took him three phone calls and repeated yelling by my sister for him to finally understand that he had called the wrong number. A regular person, having dialed the wrong number, would not argue otherwise. Following this logic, if you were calling to book a very particular type of massage, wouldn’t you be embarrassed if you got the wrong number? And, if a person yelled at you, telling you it was the wrong number, why on earth would you call back yet again? But obviously this was an abnormal circumstance. If you call three times refusing to believe the person on the other end—who is making themselves extremely clear—you are a desperate person. 

Now, I’m not one to judge. It is entirely your prerogative to book whatever sort of massage you want. But repeated 4 a.m. desperate phone calls are where I draw the line between funny and horribly annoying. So, a word to the wise: accept when you have dialed a wrong number and move on. And, for those of you who are wondering, yes, I did change my number.