Telephone Fun

Settling into a new house sure can be rife with interesting and unexpected events. Case in point: our new telephone number.

Initially, we had our telephone connected by Comcast as part of a triple-play package. It turns out Comcast is a company that wrote the book on how NOT to handle customer service. But that's a story that will be told in another blog entry -- after my television service is completely hooked up and working. Judging by the way it's been going, this may not happen for a long time. But I digress...

After the debacle with Comcast was finally ended, we elected to turn to BellSouth for telephone service. They issued us a new (easy to remember) telephone number, and it's been great - except for all the calls requesting pizza delivery.

As I sit writing this entry, the phone has rung twice with people looking for Papa John's Pizza - a third-rate pizza delivery service akin to Domino's, but with less panache and Italian integrity. At first, we thought we were given their old number, but a quick internet search turned up a single-digit difference between us.

The fun of this is that we do not get upset, we do not shout at the callers and we do not tell them they've misdialed. Rather, we have decided to answer the phone "Good Afternoon, Papa John's" every time the caller ID shows us a name we don't recognize. It's funny how many people just believe you. To date, we've taken orders for:

• 22 large plain pizzas
• 19 large pizzas with some sort of topping
• 53 medium pies
• all sorts of side dishes and drinks

I believe you really need to embrace it when you are faced with a situation like this. There's no real way to fix it without changing your telephone number. So in the meantime, I've been calling Papa John's to see if they're getting my calls.