nine times.

yesterday i decided to give my friend heidi a call. her boyfriend is out of town for the next two months and i wanted to check in with her, see how she is holding up. when i dialed her number, no voice mail picked up so i figured i'd just call her back a bit later.

then my phone rang. the caller id said "heidi" and so i answered it. the connection was pretty crackly and i could barely hear the woman speaking on the other end.

"heidi?" i said.

"yes, this is heidi!" said the woman (who sounded absolutely nothing like heidi).

"...ummm...i'm sorry...i think i have the wrong num-"

"no, this is heidi! how are you?" she continued in an undetermined accent.

"i'm fine. i...um...i'm not sure this is the right number."

i was 99% sure that this was not my friend heidi and guessed that the chances of me mistakenly calling another person with the very same name were pretty slim. then i thought that the woman was just messing with me. trying to pull a fast one one on the old lauren. but this lady didn't seem to be joking at all. she sounded very sure of herself. she seemed to think she actually was (or had become) my friend heidi.

"i'm sorry, i dialed the wrong number."

i hung up and continued on about my business. i went to the store. i deposited a check in the bank. i walked back home. i fixed my real friend heidi's number in my phone, called her, left her a message...

then, the calls began.

the faux heidi proceeded to call me 9 times, leaving three garbled messages that said (roughly), "hi lauren! this is heidi! can't wait to call you...talk to you. i will call you back. this is heidi, ok?"

yes. that's right...nearly 10 calls! now, i've had some people crazy-call me a ton of times, but those were from people i knew, never from a stranger. it was freaking me out for reals! so i called cingular and asked them if i could block a number on my phone. jackie, the polite customer service rep, said 'no' they couldn't block a number, but she would waive the $36 fee if i wanted to change my number. i told her thanks but no thanks.

the phone continued to ring. and ring. and ring. finally out of utter frustration, i answered.

i blurted out, "hi...listen, you're not my friend heidi. please don't call this number anymore, ok?" and hung up before the faker had a chance to answer.

she called back once more. then the calls stopped.

unless of course she's on her way to find me.

right NOW!