Hello There in Tucson: Part III

(continued from previous post)

We’ve always asked friends and family members not to call us after 9 p.m. unless it’s an emergency. So we were a bit apprehensive when the phone rang shortly after 9:30 p.m. one Saturday in May.

OHM picked up, barked “Hello,” and slammed down the phone. “Sounds like someone is having a party,” he growled. A few minutes later, the phone rang again. He picked up again. No one on the line again, same background noise. The third time the phone rang, I bounced off the couch, picked up the phone, hung up, and punched *69.

I guess miracles do happen—I got a phone number. I did a quick area code search and discovered that the phone number was located in Los Angeles. That was another surprise. We didn’t know anyone in Los Angeles.

I called the number and a woman answered the phone. I should have demanded “Okay, Ms. Hello Hello, who are you, and what do you want from us?” But I was so stunned that I hung up. A few minutes later, after I stopped freaking out, I called the number again. This time, the call went to a voice mail message from a woman with an accent who identified herself as Bina. Bina wasn’t the woman I had just hung up on.

Ms. Hello Hello didn’t have an accent.

(to be concluded)

Hello, Good Morning, Hello There in Tucson

That was the message the young woman left on my answering machine in February 2000. I’m sure about the date for two reasons. 1) She left the message shortly after the company I worked for moved to the airport area, thereby inconveniencing most of its employees, including me. 2) Even better: I’m a writer; I tend to document stuff, stuff like odd phone calls. I documented that first message and many subsequent “Hello, hello” messages from the same woman. I still have those notes in my files.


Oddly enough, a second woman also called one afternoon in February and asked to speak to Other Household Member (OHM). OHM told the woman she was speaking to him. The woman giggled and hung up. OHM said he could hear children in the background. Another time, we got a garbled message that sounded like the second woman’s voice saying “It would be at night.” What would be at night?


I was annoyed and with good reason. I had been the recipient of some bizarre phone calls when I first moved to Tucson. I ended up changing my phone number, and I didn’t want to feel forced into doing it again. If the women had something to say to us, I figured they should just say it and stop playing games.

I was certain that the calls were not coming from some zany, disorganized telemarketing company.


And, as it turned out, they weren't.

(to be continued)