In my apartment in Osaka, I had a black rotary phone connected to the wall by a sturdy black cord. There was no way to disconnect it without damaging the cord. Even in the early 1990s, that setup was a throwback. I don’t remember my phone number any more, but maybe it was 609 3443 or 3449. The problem described below didn’t go on for long, fortunately.

October 11, 1992

Recently some business somewhere has been assigned a phone number very similar to mine. At least it doesn’t seem to be a place, like a pizza joint maybe, that gets calls every minute. Even so, someone’s got 609 3446, one misstroke on a push-button phone from connecting with me. I received about a half-dozen call for this business in the afternoon.

At first I answered the phone each time, telling the caller than he had a wrong number, after which he would invariably call back. One dim bulb called three times, even after I’d told him (in reasonably good Japanese) that he’d misdialed the last digit.

I was annoyed until I had the inspiration of holding the receiver close to my tape deck, which I’d turn up a little for the occasion. Then I started having fun with it. No one ever called back after hearing a little music. The jolt must have made them more careful of the next dialing.