Are you my Miller?
According to Uncle Ben from “Spider-Man”, “with great power comes great responsibility.”
I first learned what it truly meant to have superpowers in the sixth grade when I was given my first super cool slide-out texting phone (I never counted my TracFone as a real phone). To be fair, my first reaction to this great power was to send pictures of IHOP bacon to casual acquaintances, but perhaps Uncle Ben meant “with great power comes great responsibility, and great bacon.”
So when I received that first real phone call (the ones from Jake the Verizon sales guy and my mom don’t really count), I was sure that it was a phone-friend anxious to compliment my photography skills. The short conversation went something like this:
Me: “Hello?”
Typical Telemarketer voice: “Is this Barry Miller?”
Me: “I think you have the wrong number.”
Confused Telemarketer voice: “This isn’t Barry Miller?”
Unsure of the right etiquette for such an awkward phone moment, I took the only action my eighth-grade mind could think of. I hung up as quickly as possible, made some Facebook status about it, and got only three likes.
Convinced that getting a call for Barry Miller was something that happened to pretty much every proud new slide-out texting phone owner, I decided to let the incident slide. Much to my dismay, the next few months brought more rings for the infamous Barry Miller. It turns out that Barry had an enormous network of friends, and was very popular with the IRS.
My Barry Miller times lasted for years and I was forced to repeatedly state again and again that I had no shared bloodline with the Miller family and my first name wasn’t even close to Barry. The calls only stopped when I became wise and brave enough to turn the tables, informing callers that the line was indeed being traced and that Verizon would be dispatching the smartphone police if the unwanted contact continued. I could only hope the real Barry Miller wasn’t in too much trouble.
Nowadays, the only wrong number stories that are shared are ones of mistaken text messages. Usually it is an unfamiliar number and a nonsensical note like “Hey Mario, you forgot your stuff at my house!” or “SRY BOUT YOUR CAT”. As tempting as it is to reply back with a note that says “Just keep the stuff” or “thinking of getting a cat tribute tattoo”, I respect karma even more than I fear the smartphone police. Only recently did someone tell me that Barry Miller is the name of an award winning local actor who starred in “Saturday Night Fever” as well as in the TV series “Fame”. While I suspect that there are many other less famous Barry Millers out there that have more legal problems, it gave me a new perspective to think that even a few of my wrong numbers could have been from Hollywood directors, famous actors, and agents.
Even when it sounds like the person on the other end of the line is a telemarketer or a wrong-number caller, it pays to be patient. You never know who you might be on the other end of the call. From the most famous actor to the most humble fugitive from the IRS to an 8th grader there is a little Barry Miller in each of us. Even the intelligent personal sidekick, Siri, could be forgiven for sending flowers to your ex-girlfriend instead of your new girlfriend. And if “Mommy” is in your contact list just above “Side Chick” you may want to pause for just a second before hitting send on that late night booty call.
