Phone Call of the Day – non sports

I'm in a general newsroom, and though I get my share of “who won X game?” calls, I get more insanity from the non-sports calls.

Today's example: Extremely nice, but obviously off-balance man, doesn't sound like a senior. He actually has the same last name of a local Olympian, so I was actually expecting a heads up on one of her appearances.

No.

Mild-mannered psycho tells me he's been watching the news about this “lady who was in space” and the TV didn't mention this, but was there ever anyone walking on the moon? You never saw pictures of it. Could I look that up for him and see “if they really did that”?

I told him to call NASA. It's too late in the day/week for me to get into some I'm Sane/You're Not discussion with someone who clearly shouldn't be operating a telephone.

That's not the most inane I've gotten, but definitely the weirdest today. Do I win a prize?

 

May be off-topic since it is sports related, but I actually had someone say he was going to find out who I am, find I where I live and come and kill me. The reason? I refused to say in a headline that Michael Bishop (ex-KState QB), a hometown preps legend, "choked" in the Big-12 title game against A&M, especially since Bishop threw for like five TDs and ran for another.

 

He was obviously off, but he was talking about the woman tourist who went up in the Soyuz last week and just returned, I believe.

 

I had a woman call to complain about the use of the word 'scrappy' in a quote.
She claimed it was an insult.
I spent about 30 minutes on the phone with her, over the course of two calls, explaining the definition of the word and the context in which it was used.
She eventually hung up on me after accusing me of 'not caring.'

 

Them's fightin' words!

 

I tried to order a pizza, but dailed the wrong number.

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/pizza.php

 

Once argued with a woman on the phone for 20 minutes. She said she didn't get her Sunday paper that morning.

Me: "Ma'am, it's Wednesday."

Her: "Bullshit!"

Took 20 minutes. I finally convinced her about the date by having her switch her cable to one of those "local origination" stations that, in addition to listing the community events, has the date and time on it all the time.

 

I'm with the caller here. Scrappy Doo gave that word a negative connotation forevermore.

 

Hey, I grew up a big Scooby fan, so I hate Scrappy as much as anyone.
But it was obvious from the context that the person who used the word was not trying to insult anyone.

 

Just like what Hitler did for the first name Adolph and what Mrs. Gifford did for the name Cathy Lee

 

Monday night I got a call from a guy claiming my work number was his brother's cell phone. He argued with me about for around 20 minutes with me going "It's the Podunk, Mont., Press" and him going "Ths is my brother's number. Let me speak to him," before he finally said, "That's it. I'm calling the cops."

I was amused.

 

I got a call my first week at my last stop from a man who was mad that I didn't have a quote from him in a story about one of his rental properties burning down. I explained to him that I had called and left a message to return the call and he never did, so I wrote that no one was available to comment at press time. He threatened to sue me, but the best part was that while I was on the phone with him, his wife called and left me a nasty voicemail, then called the main number and terrorized the front office staff for awhile. After that, anytime anyone called me and sounded angry, the girls at the front desk just went "Oh shit, grab a paper and see what spup wrote today."

I'm guessing after he went to his lawyer and the lawyer said I didn't do anything wrong, the man crawled back to his hole because we never heard from him again.