why are people so stupid?

My phone number is one digit away from the Government of Alberta.

If a person changes my 5 to 0, then you'll be calling the Government. Similarly, if that 0 is changed to a 5, then you call me.

So then, how is it that a person screws this up? A 5 and a 0 are not similar at all! They are not beside each other on a telephone keypad. A caller would have to skip over a second row to dial the 5.

And it's not smart people either. These callers are the type of people looking for welfare cheques, or child support enforcement, or free health care.

Come on! If you're going to be a social burden, a leech, and a general life sucking drain on the economy, at least you could figure out how use a telephone!

And this has nothing to do with the greater Cleveland cab company, for which I also get phone calls from drink people late at night.

That took me over a year to figure out. But one day, someone finally called in the middle of the day, sober, and was able to tell me which company they were calling. I googled it, and soon discovered this: take off the 4 of their area code, and add a 0 to end of the number, and presto! through the magic of the PSTN, you ring up my mobile!

At least those people aren't social leeches; they've got money and are trying to spend it to further stimulate the economy.

Whenever I see that Ohio code on the call display, I now have fun with it.

When some poor old senior calls me instead of one of the King's civil slaves, I explain that the number was dialled incorrectly. You're old! What can you do?

But when it's some welfare bum, or aggressively passive social drain, I just hang up. Or press ignore, continually sending a busy tone down the line. It's my little gift to the ignorant and lazy.

Perhaps you should have learned your abc's and 123's before dropping out of grade 4 and becoming useless.