I got Jordan upstairs... (Wrong Number Calls)

This past Sunday I had to organize a council meeting for my calling in church. This meant getting the names and numbers of those making up our committee and contacting them. After sending out a mass text and hearing back from only a few of those to whom I had sent it, I began making calls to those who hadn’t responded. I had actually sent a few mass texts to these people and wondered why they might not be responding. That’s when I tried to call my friend Art only to discover that the number I had for him was wrong and that the guy on the other end of the phone already understood the mix up and informed me that the number for my friend was incorrect in our ward’s directory. I felt horrible and hoped I didn’t wake him. This incident caused me to reflect on all the times I had received calls from people who had the wrong number, oft times early in the morning. So here are a couple of my favorite wrong number calls I have received…

The first is a classic. Have you ever received a call from someone and missed it and then, when you return the call to see who it was, they deny that they ever called you? That happened to me and worse. Most wrong number calls I get are from Pennsylvania even though I live in Utah now. I got a call when I was in church one day and I planned on returning it as soon as our meeting was over. I came out of my meeting spiritually charged and ready to implement world peace. I dialed the number. The person who attended the phone was anything but friendly. With questions like, “How did you get this number?” and “Why are you calling us?” spoken in a deep and threatening voice, I was taken back. Then, they strongly urged me to never call them back or else and hung up. Needless to say, that killed my spiritual high.

Another time, I found myself in the middle of a crisis I couldn’t resolve. A young mother called me in tears under the impression that mine was the number to a local hospital. I informed her that she had the wrong number, but she began to unfold her life story and implore my aid. Apparently her young daughter had cancer and she was trying to get a hold of a cancer center so that she could begin her treatment. The woman asked repetitively if I knew of a good hospital or had a care center’s number. I felt terrible even though I had no reason to of held such information. I left that phone call depressed and offered a few prayers for that family.

Though I have received countless phone calls early in the morning from people in Pennsylvania, because of the two hour time difference, there is one that has become my absolute favorite wrong number call that I have received in such a manner. It was around 6:30 am on a school day when I began to hear my ringtone go off as I was in the middle of a pleasant dream. My fuzzy eyes looked to see who it could be calling this early, hoping a friend didn’t have a dire emergency. To my surprise, it was a friend from back home in PA that I hadn’t talked to in forever. Now, I had recently gone through a few personal crises and wondered if he might be inquiring about them. I will try to recount the experience to the best of my ability:

“Hey dude, what’s up?”

“Are you okay???!!!”

“Uhh… yeah, man, what’s up?”

“What’s going on!?”

“Uh, nothing, why?” (thinking to myself, well I’m not sleeping anymore!)

“WHAT’S GOING ON!?”

“Nothing, dude, why?”

“Nothing?! Well I got Jordan upstairs telling me you just got kicked outta your house!”

My first thoughts after that were: Whose Jordan? What are they doing upstairs? And why did I get kicked out of my house? Apparently my recent drama was more devastating then I realized! But then I started to really wake up and suspect that there was something else wrong. After further conversation, I learned that there was a misunderstanding and that my friend had called the wrong number. So I was safe and Jordan had no say in my affairs. I felt bad for the person my friend had intended on calling and I never learned the identity of this Jordan character, but it was the most interesting wrong number call I have ever received.

The Stinky Underpass (Bad Smells)

The other day I embarked on a dreadful task… doing our dishes. They had formed a small mountain range originating from the middle of the sink and continued along the countertop. As I reached the bottom of the heap, I removed a pan that had been retaining what seemed to be a poisonous gas. The stench overcame me and I barely held on to consciousness. It was the kind of smell that becomes imprinted on your mind, like the smell of your girlfriend’s perfume only on the opposite side of the spectrum of delight. Anyways, this particular smell brought back the painful memories of similar fragrances that I’d had the misfortune of encountering in my life. A particular experience stood out in my mind…

It was a very rainy day back in my middle school years. A friend and I found ourselves staring out the window at the torrential downpour that awaited us on our walk home. We had heard rumors that there had been flooding all along the Susquehanna River. The time was approaching in which we would have to brave this flash flood on our 15-20 minute walk home.

When the bell rang, we grabbed our bags and jackets from our lockers and made our way to the door. After saying a silent prayer and preparing our game plan for getting home in the fastest manner possible, we made a mad dash out of the door. The whole trip was plagued by giant puddles and blinding rain. We made great time by jogging every once in a while and found ourselves at the last part of our journey home: The Stinky Underpass.

The Stinky Underpass was an underpass (and thus appropriately named) that went under the railroad tracks that connected my house to the parking lot of a local supermarket. It received the adjective “stinky” because it is filled with human waste, including trash and the biological variety. The walls are covered in graffiti and the ceiling with cobwebs. It was a popular place for druggies to go because no cop wanted to venture into that smelly abyss.

As my friend and I descended the stairs of the underpass, we realized that we couldn’t see the floor of the tunnel. It was pitch black. Then it hit us, it was flooded! There was about 7 inches of sewer-like water covering the ground of the last bit of our flight home. We knew that going around would take another 6 minutes or so, so we got inventive. Taking a shopping cart from the parking lot, we pushed it down the stairs, hopped in, and used sticks as paddles inside our shopping cart boat. Pushing our way through the damp, stinky tunnel, we felt incredibly proud of ourselves having conquered this obstacle. That’s when something went wrong and we stopped.

We were stuck. We had gotten a wheel caught on… I’d rather not imagine what it could’ve been. We were half way through. There was no going back. We hopped out of the cart and made an awkward, sluggish dash for the other end. We made it out, but we were soaked in sludge. We both made it home safe that day, but the awful smell that stuck to us and those clothes for days after the incident was permanently ingrained into my mind.

Laundry Day (A Very Exciting Day)

Today I have to do my laundry… exciting stuff, right? Well, it’s not anymore now that I have a washer and dryer in my apartment. There was a time; however, that laundry was a very exciting day. That was back when I shared a laundry room with everyone else in my apartment building. Now, it is common knowledge that when doing laundry in public laundry mats that you will lose some article of clothing. Be it a sock, a shirt, etc. it is almost certain that something will be missing when the chore is complete. But what if you had the opposite happen to you? What if you found a little something special for you in every load, like a Cracker Jack box? ...

This laundry lottery effect began about a year ago. I had just gotten home from a long day at school, done my laundry, and I began to put my clean clothes away. I started pairing up socks and noticed that I had an extra one. My first thought was that I had lost one and I started to look around frantically for it. I finally realized that it wasn’t mine. I was confused. You never find anything extra in your laundry. What was I to do with the sock? It was a good sock. I could keep it in case I lost one or found another. But, then again, keeping an item of clothing that has been soaked in the foot sweat of another guy almost made me puke in my mouth. So, I returned it to the laundry room in hopes that the owner would find it and cherish it more this time around. Okay, so that’s the boring part, the best was yet to come.

I didn’t think much about the incident the next week while I retrieved my laundry from the dryer. When I found the next extra sock, I was just as amazed and once again found myself debating if I should keep it and beating myself up for having discarded last week’s sock surprise because I could have made a pair. Ultimately, my better sense made me return it as I had the previous week.

The next week brought a new gift, a foreign t-shirt! That’s when I thought things were getting a little out of hand. I mean, I thought I looked in the machines before I put stuff in them. A sock is an easy miss, but a shirt?! How’d I miss that? The coming week I’d be ready! But nothing could have prepared me for the coming weeks!

I was super cautious when investigating the machines. I wasn’t going to get any surprises that day. When finished, I dumped the last load of laundry on my bed to fold my clothes and put everything away. When the pile was almost gone, I noticed something strange… something shiny… something silky, something lacey….. something that resembled girl’s panties!!! But, not resembling, they were girl’s panties! I had to get rid of them! But, I didn’t want to pick them up! They were a girl’s undergarment and had been to places a more taboo than a boy’s sock! What if a roommate saw me with them? What if someone saw me returning them??? Anyway, I returned them and became more paranoid than ever.

The paranoia didn’t help though as, in the next two of three weeks, the incident repeated itself. It became a joke! I soon became a lot more comfortable with the fact that I would find women’s underwear in my laundry, of all kinds, in fact. I even debated if I should start a collection. It was a quick debate in the negative favor. But ever since then, laundry day became like a holiday amongst my friends. Everyone knew I would find something special each week. We soon began to guess. Girls would joke and say they would leave something for me. Those were the days… the most exciting laundry days of my life.

Oh Billy (New Roommates)

Many of you know that my former roommate, Matt, has left me to spend this coming semester in Canada so that he can be closer to his fiancée Emma. That means I’ll be getting a new roommate, Peter. While the prospects of many new adventures and funny stories are certain, this has caused me to reflect on experiences I’ve had with past roommates that have enriched my life…

Exactly two years ago this semester, I moved into The Lodges at Glenwood here in Provo. I already knew the semester and my roommates would be interesting since the window had the words Animal House painted on the living room window. Then I met my new roommates. They were all really cool and we were all very different. Most different than all was Billy. Billy was a lacrosse player for BYU and it seemed, at least to me, that he may have been beaten in the head one too many times with a lacrosse stick. Though there are many memories I’d like to share about my friend Billy, I think I’d like to share my personal favorite first.

It was a pleasant afternoon and I found myself engaged in an engaging conversation with my other roommate, Winston, in my room. All was fine and calm until… “OH SHIZ!” Only the word we heard wasn’t shiz. The origin of the profanity: Billy, from the bathroom. Winston and I glanced at each, both in shock and confusion. After a brief pause, Winston inquired what had happened. Billy replied that he dropped the roll of toilet paper into the toilet while wiping. Again, there was a moment of awkward silence until Winston once again asked how that was possible. You see, the roll was new and should have been sufficiently wide enough to not have fallen in if you were still seated upon the throne… not that that is a common occurrence. That’s when Billy gave the only plausible response there could be, “I had to stretch!”

After a short laugh of disgust, confusion, and amazement I told Billy that would place a plastic bag outside the bathroom so that he could place the soiled roll of TP into the bag and run it to the dump outside as soon as he was finished. We thought the incident was over. That’s when, after about five more minutes, Billy exited the bathroom bagless and proceeded to the living room without washing his hands. More baffled and disgusted than ever, I asked where the roll of TP was. Billy then gave another logical answer, “I put it on the shelf to dry off.” Sure enough, there was a roll of soiled TP on the shelf of the restroom drying off. Needless to say, Winston and I reprimanded our friend Billy and the situation was resolved.

So, with this new semester approaching and new roommates to meet, I hope we all get a new Billy in our lives that can shift our paradigms just a little bit and provide us with the kind of stories we will remember for years to come.

The Gun Guy (The Value of Sleep)

I really value sleep like most people. I hate when people call me before 8 a.m. without good reason, when people are blasting music really late at night, and when people are fighting and threatening to shoot each other when I'm trying to sleep...

I remember being in a deep sleep one night back when I was in high school and living in Middletown. The next words I remember were "PUT THE GUN DOWN!!!!!" At first, I thought it was all apart of my dream. Then, I realized that there was a mob right out in front of our house yelling at each other. I was so tired! It must have been going on right in the middle of my R.E.M. cycle or something. The shouting continued and I couldn't really make out what the group was arguing about. I just remember trying to go back to sleep for what seemed an eternity. "PUT IT AWAY, MAN, PUT THE GUN AWAY!!!" I'm sure there where many explicit words used in between as well and I shouldn't be directly quoted on that. It kept going on and I kept getting more and more aggravated. "PUT IT DOWN!!!" That was it, I couldn't take it anymore. I had lost my patience. I found myself shouting out, "JUST PUT IT AWAY OR SHOOT HIM NOW! I want to sleep!"

I don't think they heard me even though my window was open. I know it wasn't the most sensitive thing to think or say, but I meant it! Sleep is a sacred thing that not even a gun fight should disturb. The man I call The Gun Guy was arrested and put in jail for a couple years. He is now the proud father of a little boy with a mohawk.

A little bit about me... yes, i know there's a personal bio section

My name is Dan Klinger and I, like everyone else, have stories to tell. A while ago, a buddy and I were going to make a blog in which we would post all of the funny things that happened to us during daily life. We were roommates, close friends, and did everything together. But, in attempt to avoid any further appearance of homosexuality, we passed on that idea and now have separate blogs.

I am from Middletown, PA originally. Unfortunately, no one really knew where Middletown was when I would explain where I was from, so I have always claimed Hershey, PA as my hometown. This wasn't much of a stretch since my dad worked in Hershey, I went to church with people from Hershey, I worked at the amusement park there and also the chocolate factory, and generally spent a lot of time there. More recently, Middletown has regained some of it's fame as it's nuclear power plant was featured in the movie Wolverine. T.M.I., Three Mile Island, was the local of the final fight between Wolverine, Sabertooth, and DeadPool. It is also famous for it's near-nuclear meltdown in 1979.

My home is located in a classy part of town. I grew up with railroad tracks on one side of my house, low-income housing and wanna-be gangsters up the street, the Susquehanna River and the red-neck population to the other side, and a strip club behind our house. I kinda miss my home. The kids with shirts that go down to their knees, where the tops of their jeans were, reciting rap lyrics as they walked alone on the sidewalk. I kinda miss the crazy people in my town: No Neck, The Gun Guy, and the three schizophrenics that would roam around the town. I kinda miss playing tag with my friends around and in the lounge of the strip club (named The Pink Pussycat, then The Pink Pussycat II, and finally Hanger 69) until it burned down in my late childhood.

Speaking of friends, I had an interesting group of friends growing up. My first best friend I've ever had was an interesting kid. He liked the WWF and always wanted to practice moves on me. That's actually how we ended up not being friends anymore. I was kinda mad at him because he tried to show me some SI swimsuit edition and then started trying to do a wrestling move on me. I kinda lost it, reversed the move and hit him hard. He then proceeded to chase me down the street with a bat. I found out that a couple years ago that he escaped out of the bathroom window of a court hearing he had for breaking a restraining order on him from his ex-girlfriend.

Anyway, i hope that gives a bit of a background for who I am and where i come from. I had a very interesting childhood and I could look forward to meeting even more interesting characters as my life went on.