Wrong Number, Buddy

Every few weeks, I get a call on my cell phone from someone in Philadelphia asking for a man named Bill. This man happens to be my ex-uncle.

I'm on a family plan with my aunt in Pennsylvania, and it was more cost effective for me to continue paying her $15 a month rather than get my own plan. The stipulation is that I keep a Philadelphia number. This isn't a problem because many of my friends in Austin have numbers from elsewhere.

However, it just so happens that the number I currently have was my uncle's before the divorce. My aunt was still paying for the extra line about a year after the split. When I moved in with her, she let me take the number, seeing as it was no extra expense to her.

But Ex-uncle Bill never updated several contacts with his new cell phone number. I get calls from his clients, old friends, doctors. I always politely say, "I'm sorry, he no longer has this number."

I've been tempted to find his new number and tell him I'm tired of getting his phone calls. But then considering the family dynamics that have developed since the divorce, I've decided against it. Somehow, it's sweet revenge knowing these people can't get a hold of him and it's what he deserves for not sharing his new number.