I don't know if your company issues cell phones to employees, but a company I once worked for did, and they actually claimed they would monitor your activity. It seems as if George Orwell's vision of the future had become a reality with governments and companies monitoring people's activity. Today, even our private conversations are now public fodder. So when I received a Blackberry from Federal Express, I was reluctant to activate it for fear that soon "Big Brother" would be watching me. Well it turns out that Big Brother was definitely not watching, because the person who had the number previously was utilizing his company phone for a side business of his own.
Initially. when I received the Blackberry I was annoyed that it had a 732 area code. For those of you who are familiar with the East Coast of the United States, this is a New Jersey area code. Yes, that's right, New Jersey. Home of famous people like Thomas Edison, Buzz Aldrin, Bruce Springstein, and of course New Jersey's most famous resident Nicole "Snooki" Pilozzi. Her and all the other residents of the "Jersey Shore" have turned the state from the Garden State into the "Fall Down I'm In A Drunken State", and now the place is famous for great things such as the "Jersey Fist Pump".(See Picture and Diagram Below)
But the show "Jersey Shore" is not why I was upset, because at times, the show can be amusing just like Jerry Springer, or Maury Povich are amusing. You just want to see a train wreck and they provide you with daily train wrecks for your amusement and observation. So you can go about your life thinking, "Man at least my life's not that screwed up". The reason the New Jersey area code upset me is because I'm in California! California, home of fun and sun, and beautiful guys and girls who definitely do not fist pump. My prospects or customers would see the number and think immediately that the company was located in New Jersey and had no California address. Which would not be true at all, in fact we had two large distribution centers in California. But the area code was the least of my problems with the new smart phone. The first problem came when I activated the damn thing. I received a text message which read:
"Bro, I need a hook up for tonight I got that date and everything. Call me."
I thought it must be a mistake, since I had just activated the phone. Why would anyone send me that kind of text?
"Bro, why are you not calling me. I wanna score something tonight. Hook a brutha up and call me...laters"
Now this message seemed a bit distressing since I am not a complete idiot and I know that when you "score" something it either means a girl, guy, or drugs. I assumed this message meant drugs, and I was not disappointed because the next text message, from a different number, confirmed my theory.
"Yo, what type of sh#t are you bringing to the party tonight? I'm bringing the booze, but I know you're bringing the PARTY!!!!!! Right? Holla back so we can hook up for some pre party stuff."
Keep in mind, for those of you who are literate, I am inserting punctuation so the text reads correctly. It seems that currently, we don't feel a need for any type of punctuation, even in a so called "literate" society. The real texts were without punctuation, except for the '!!!!", and capital letters. I guess that's more "street" or hip. What would I know? I'm a dork. I thought long and carefully about responding to the texts, however I figured it would be best to just ignore the request and eventually the texts would stop.
But then the phone started ringing and all the calls were from 732,646,917, and 516. New York City or New Jersey. I didn't answer the phone because first and foremost I didn't want to feel obligated to help the person on the other line with their "issue". And what the hell was I gonna do for them anyway? And as I could see the voicemails kept coming, I decided to listen to them out of curiosity.
"Yo bro, Are you gonna call me or what? I got this hot bitch lined up for tonight and I wanna give her a buzzzzzzzz before we go out. Keep her wound tight. Where ya at?"
" Yo, yo, yo, what's up?!!! I need to score some uhhh "fun" for this weekend, I got some friends coming in, so call me."
" Hey ______, are you coming for Thanksgiving tomorrow? If you are, bring some sh#t so we can get WASTED dude. Later."
"Yo, yo, I have booze for tomorrow but bring some of the good E. Haha or GOOD "Es" should I say. Hahaha. Hit me back."
Apparently, this person definitely had some connection to drugs. I know for a fact that "E" stands for Ecstasy, and he apparently had some type of hook up to that drug in particular but who knows what he was supplying to people. I was starting to get paranoid because the phone kept ringing, especially one 732 number in particular and thought to myself:
"Oh great! All the buyers are pissed off at this guy, and so essentially there mad at me! They're expecting me to come through for them. Where am I going to Ecstasy at this hour and how am I gonna get it to New York and New Jersey!"
Then I realized they didn't know me, so why should I care? I'll just turn the phone off, which I did. Problem solved. At that very instant, there was someone pounding at my front door. Pounding so hard, and so LOUD, that my dog started barking, which she never does. I was freaking out now. Was it the police? Did they trace the phone to my place and now I was going take the fall for this former employee's little drug empire? I couldn't go to jail, I'd never last as some one's "bitch".
Or maybe it was a competing drug dealer, who knew I was now in this market and who was looking to rub me out? He was probably outside with an uzi just waiting for me to open the door so he could fill me full of bullet holes. I was losing it.
I decided to hide in the closet, because that was all I could think of to do. I thought this was a brilliant plan since cops or angry drug dealers never look for perpetrators in the closet. I sat there in the dark, and I just waited for the pounding and barking to stop which it did, and then I heard a car or truck pull away from outside the house. I was free....for now.
I slowly opened the door and saw a little package lying on the welcome mat. I grabbed it, and quickly closed the door. As I carried it to the kitchen, I thought it must be a bomb, or some other incendiary device from a rival gang who already knew about my dealings with clients in New Jersey and NYC. I carefully laid it down on the table and looked at the labels. It looked normal enough, and it was from out of state. I didn't get close enough to read the label because I didn't want it to blow up. Instead I set it on the ground for the dog to sniff at, hoping she would miraculously change into some bomb sniffer, or that if it did go off at least she would be the only casualty. She pushed it with her nose and I covered my ears but nothing. I picked up the package and looked at the label. It read:
"Happy Thanksgiving From _____________ Healthcare"
I was confused by the cheery message, and then my personal phone rang. I looked at the number and it was from my company's corporate office so I answered.
"Hi M. This is Dave from _____ IT. Heh I need you to help you set up your new phone. Do you have time right now."
"Yeah I guess Dave. I've been getting all kinds of weird messages on this phone. Who was the last person who had this number anyway?"
" Beats me. What's the area code anyway?"
" It's 732."
" Oh that's Jersey. Probably a rep in NY or something. I don't know who get's what numbers until I set them up. Why do you ask?"
" I keep getting weird texts and phone calls from the East Coast. "
" Well just ignore them, I'm sure they'll stop calling. Or change the voicemail and people will get the idea. "
That was easy for him to say, he didn't have people counting on him for Ecstasy and other drugs in order to have a Happy Thanksgiving. He didn't have the cops on his tail and rival dealers ready to kill him at a moment's notice. Sometimes people are just clueless.
He took his time and helped me set up the Blackberry, and eventually the calls and texts stopped after a week, but I missed my time as a potential part time drug dealer with an East Coast connection. As the texts trailed off, I was almost tempted to answer them just to keep the conversations going, but I knew if that happened soon there would be that familiar sound of banging at the front door from the police....or a delivery guy. I was thinking the whole time that Dave, the IT guy, didn't have any idea how close I had come to getting thrown in the "slammer", or worse...killed. And then I thought of what Dave looked like, and how long he would last in jail, the big wimp. He couldn't do the hard time like me, like a dealer. I held up my new company phone, rubbed on the texts, and missed calls, and thought to myself,
"I'm such a bad ass!"
Have a great day!
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