Wrong Number, Lady

Back in the day, when I was a young, naive 18-year-old, I couldn'twait to establish my first "adult" residence, the representation ofall freedom, lawlessness (aka, lack of a curfew) and grown-up-ness there couldbe -- the college dorm room. (The underlying question? Can you be in an"adult" residence when your parents are shelling out$15,000/semester?)

As far as I was concerned, there were three very important tasksthat came with establishing my sophisticated, mature digs:

1. Bed linens. As the main fixture in any dorm room, I consideredit paramount that my bed linens be extraordinary – cute, but not childish – soas to showcase both my taste and incredible sense of style. I’ll give you twowords on this one: Pottery Barn. Need I really say more? Most of my wardrobecame from J.Crew, too. 

2. The mini-fridge. At Duke, mini-fridges with microwaves wereavailable to rent for all freshman, and of course, my roommate and I had tohave one of these as well for our room snacks, sodas and maybe, if we werelucky, some beer. Also, without the mini-fridge, it would have been impossible to have the roommate fight that I imagine might have started the whole Cain/Abel thing over who ate who's Pringles and which party finished the last of the peanut butter. (Little did I know that this fight would find a way to rear its ugly little head in pretty much all of my co-habitation situations since.)

3. A phone line. Now, for those of you too young to remember thedays before cell phones, I’ll date myself by saying that when I went tocollege, no one had cell phones. (Of course, some people had cell phones,myself included, but Duke kids at that time mocked anyone who had a cell phone,and since mine was, in theory, for emergency purposes only, I hid it beneathmany layers of underwear and hoped it never rang when anyone else was in theroom. Considering how well I did at making friends at Duke, this wasn’t toomuch of a concern.)

Also, without a land line, you can’t fight with your roommateover who hogs the phone talking to her boyfriend at another school or spend theend of every month scrambling to pay the long distance bill that comes from toomany conversations with said boyfriend. (For that one, all the guilt’s on me.)However, a land line also provides plenty of opportunities for your roommate’smom to ask where she is even though you yourself haven’t seen her in days, soit’s an unfortunate lesson in deception and being thrown under the bus, so that someone else can spend all her time with her on-campus boyfriend. (“I’msorry, Mom, Laurel just didn’t give me the messages.”)

Oh, the lessons of adulthood.

When I arrived at Duke, unpackingmy clothes, setting up my bed linens and stocking the mini-fridge were toppriorities. Then came the incredible thrill of having my very own phone linecomplete with options for individual voice mail.

My roommate and I couldn’t believeour luck at being given such an easy number to remember: 919-234-4000. We’dhave no trouble recounting that to anyone who asked – from new friends to theJimmy John’s delivery guy.

It wasn’t until the first Saturdaynight after orientation, when all of the classes, from freshmen to seniors,were back on campus that we realized that what we thought was good fortune wasactually a terrible turn of bad luck.

You see, the number to accessDuke’s voice mail system was 919-234-0000. And any phone in the hands of a drunkco-ed often seemed to punch that 4 one too many times and end up dialing ourroom instead. Every girl who wanted to know if a boy had called (and viceversa) began ringing us up about 2:00 a.m. (when campus parties and the onecampus bar had to shut down) each and every Saturday night. (Sometimes, it wasThursdays and Fridays, too.)

Now, for those of you wonderingwhy I would still answer the phone at that hour, please keep in mind that 1) Ihad a long-distance boyfriend who also had a knack for calling when the barsclosed on Saturday night and 2) With my kind of anxiety, it’s nearly impossibleto let a phone go unanswered in the middle of the night. Even though I knew itwas probably Candy looking for her ATO hook-up, I always thought, “What if thisis the one time someone is stuck in a ditch somewhere?"

Most people who called our linequickly realized their mistake, and the calls were either hang-ups or terse“sorrys” before a hang-up. But, there’s always one in every bunch, and eachSaturday night, there was always at least one super drunk who didn’t play bythe same rules.

You see, even though this was wayback in the days of land lines and rented mini-fridges, the Duke voice mailsystem was still AUTOMATED. If you wanted your messages, you entered a code(just like we do today), and then you went through a series of prompts to getyour messages.

Still, every Saturday night, I hadat least one conversation that went like this:

Me: “Hello?” I was usually sleepy,frat parties not being much of my scene.

Drunky: “Hey, I need to get mymessages.” (Because, of course, despite weeks and months of encountering asynthesized voice, Saturday night would be the time to switch over to a real,live operator.)

Me: “I think you have the wrongnumber.”

Drunky: “No. I need my messages.”

Me: “I think you want voice mail.”

Drunky: “My code is 2473, OK? Nowcan you just give me my messages. I mean, what’s with the attitude?”

This is usually when I hung up,but the particularly persistent ones would call back.

“I’m trying to get my messages.”Then I’d hear the grating beeps as the person on the other end of the linepunched a series of buttons on the number pad.

“I told you. You have the wrongnumber.”

“Why this isn’t working?” wouldusually be the last thing I heard as whatever drunk it was complained to aroommate I was sure would soon be holding their hair back in the bathroomlater.

I didn't get a lot of sleep mostweekends.

And, so, there you have it kids --some inside information on Duke, the #3 university in the country according to1998’s U.S. News & World Report.You just wouldn’t have any idea about all of that brain power if you watchedhalf the campus try to work a phone on Saturday nights.