Dear James,
It's time for our relationship to end. It has been nothing but unpleasant for me.
You probably don't have any idea that I exist, but I know a lot about you. And so far, none of it is good. Our most recent encounter was yesterday at Discount Tire when the man who was helping me typed my phone number into the computer and said "James?". No. James hasn't had this phone number for over three years.
We are like Doris Day and Rock Hudson in Pillow Talk, except you're probably not that good looking, this isn't a party line, and I'm not going to vengefully decorate your bachelor pad. Never mind, this is nothing like Pillow Talk.
Our relationship exists solely because of a shared phone number. You had the phone number I now own until sometime before I picked it up that fateful October day in 2010 at the AT&T store. At the time, I was an eager college graduate starting her first big girl job and buying her first smart phone.
My whole life was ahead of me, but three-plus years of phone calls from angry debt collectors have left me jaded. I don't know how you got yourself into this mess, but you owe a lot of people all across the nation a lot of money. I'm sure that is a stressful thing to have following you around, so you skipped town and disconnected your number, never thinking about the stranger who would field these ire-filled phone calls for years to come.
"Hi, James?"
"No, this isn't his number anymore."
"I need his new number. That ********** took $50K from me and never built anything."
"I'm sorry. I have no idea who James is. I picked this number up from the phone company in 2010."
"Just tell me where I can find him."
"I don't know where to find him. I've never met him."
"Then why do you have his phone?"
"I don't have his phone. I have the number he disconnected sometime before October of 2010."
"I don't know why you're trying to protect him. He's a con artist."
You see, I feel bad for these victims. Your selfishness, or maybe really terrible math skills, left them with a debt problem of their own. $50K?! That's a lot of money to have disappear. I'd be upset if you conned me out of $50.
About a year after that October day that forever changed my life, I got a call from a 10-year-old boy with a rural Mississippi area code.
"Hello?"
"Hi."
"Who is this?"
"Who is this?"
"Meredith...you called me."
"Meredith Jones?" (I don't remember the last name he said..)
"No, Meredith Collier."
"Oh."
"I think you have the wrong number."
"Oh. OK."
He called back two times before I answered again.
"Hey...you still have the wrong number."
"No...there's a bike in our garage with this number written on it."
"Oh. Do you know a James McGilicuddy?" (Last name changed to protect the innocent family of the not-innocent con man.)
"Yeah. He lives across the street."
"This used to be his number, so I guess that's his bike."
Maybe the boy told you that I knew your full name, and maybe it made you realize that your past was following me. Maybe you're slowly paying back the debt you created. Maybe you're continuing your con game in rural Mississippi.
There are a lot of maybes in our relationship, James, but I know one thing for sure. This needs to end.
It's not me, James. It's you.
Meredith
