This is the way it used to be... Somebody would call asking for George or Julie and you answer no, not at this number; what number did you dial? 733-6331. OK Honest mistake, a couple of numbers got twisted. Easy to do. Try again.

But lately I'm perplexed. What number did you dial? 498-7982. Say what? What kind of drugs are you on lady? This is about the fifth occurrence in the last three weeks. And they're different people. Something is going on here that I don't know about... or maybe that dumbing down of society a few years back is working better than anticipated.

Then just after I wrote this it happened again. For Becky this time and an equally perplexing dialed number. Now there are two possible simple explanations. One: the person called has a call forwarding feature and it was they who mis-typed the forwarded number in a simple way. The only problem with this theory is the sheer number of people who are mis-typing to my number. If a normal percentage of them were clumsy I would expect maybe three common transposition mistakes at most. Beyond that and we're into statistically huge deviations. Two: the phone company has installed new software or failed to maintain critical switching circuits and the lines are getting totally scrambled. My money is on two.