How Could This Happen Again...I’m NOT a woman!

Photo by Clipart Library

Welcome to my new subscribers!

It’s time to go back in the vault and pull out a funny story from the past. Those who are regular subscribers will remember when I wrote the story titled, “3 People Think I’m A Woman On The Phone”, back in December 2022.

There has been a new revelation. It happened again. So we can add a fourth person to the list.

The new instance came in November 2024. I’m going to put that portion at the bottom of the original story. So those of you that remember this story can either re-read it in its entirety or skip to the bottom.

First Instance

About 15 years ago, I kept getting a free newspaper in the driveway. It was from the Hometown News. They published weekly and besides the newspaper stories, they had coupons in the middle of the paper.

I didn’t ask for it. It was a freebie. They put a subscriber sheet inside the newspaper wanting you to give them your address and contact info to continue receiving the newspaper. I didn’t and I kept getting it. At least two months later, I was still receiving it without giving my information. The coupons were all from stuff I didn’t buy. I didn’t want it to go to waste. I thought about jumping on social media and seeing if anyone needed or wanted them but I wasn’t on social media so I’d have to sign-up.

I decided to donate them to some military families. They were serving us, so they deserved the freebies.

First, I needed to figure out where I was going to send them. I decided to send them to 2 different states, one for New York since I’m originally from there and one for Florida, my current location.

I chose Fort Drum, a U.S. Army installation, as my donation site for New York. I was able to find an email address and send a message to that person. They replied back with a mailing address for me to send the coupons.

For the Florida location, I picked Patrick Air Force Base (now renamed Patrick Space Force Base), which was only a couple miles from my house and across the river. I emailed someone from their website. She replied back but not with a mailing address. She wanted me to call the base and talk to someone in the area of family services.

This is where it got weird. I dialed the phone and a woman answered. I told her that I wanted to donate a bunch of coupons (it was like 250). She initially wanted me to drive them to the base. But I told her I was just a civilian and how was I going to get in. So she had to ask another woman the address where I could send them. She told me to hang on and then I heard her tell the other woman this:

woman on phone: “Hey Margaret, there’s a lady on the phone who wants to donate a bunch of coupons to us. What is the address I should tell her?”

LOL. I didn’t want to embarrass her and tell her that she was actually talking to a guy.

Second Instance

Telemarketers were always calling and still do call to sell you something. I just don’t answer now since I have CallerID. Even when they instituted the do-not-call list, you got flooded with calls. I thought that was supposed to put a stop to all those calls. I just got more.

One day, a guy called trying to sell me something. All throughout the conversation, he called me “Mam”. Then he asked to talk to the gentleman of the house when he couldn’t get through to me. Click! I hung up on him.

Third Instance

This one got out of control fast. It was kind of funny after I finished this phone call because I thought of something else. We’ll get to that at the end.

I had moved to a townhome right down the road from where we had just sold the house. At the time, I had Earthlink for my Internet. I used an Earthlink email address. Upon moving to the new place, I found out they had Dish Network for both television and Internet. So I was no longer needing Earthlink. Trying to cancel the service was a nightmare. I thought you could cancel through the Internet chat on their website. I chatted with someone and they told me I would have to call them. You had to talk to a customer service representative.

The conversation went back and forth with the guy. He tried so hard to convince me that I needed the email address I had with them. He told me, “Mam, what about all your correspondence? You won’t be able to get your emails.” I was yelling on the phone to him. He just wouldn’t get it. Finally, I did something that probably surprised him. I dropped an F-bomb. All of the sudden, he starts apologizing and saying that he’s going to cancel the account. That was the first and only time I have ever swore at someone on the phone.

Now the funny thing is, I thought the account was set up in my name. But after he called me “Mam” and I got off the phone, I remembered that it was in my Mom’s name. So when he called me “Mam”, he thought I was my Mom. So when I got off the phone with him, I told my Mom, “You just said a bunch of bad words to some customer service guy.” LOL.

New Instance - #4

It all started on November 13^th. While eating dinner I discovered I had chipped a tooth. Due to not having many days off and the calendar being filled where I couldn’t take any days off, it looked like if I didn’t get in right away, I would have to wait until 2025. I did not want to do that. That would have been agony waiting that long.

I hadn’t been to the dentist since Covid was spawned. Even though the dentists were always masked up, I had to take the concerns for safety first. In March of the year that Covid hit, I had an appointment and told them I would re-schedule when it was safer. Well, things happen and time goes by fast. It had been five years since I had been there.

I called the next day and told them my full name. I asked them if I could get in on Tuesday, November 19. The woman on the phone checked and couldn’t find anything. I reiterated to her that I could only do it on that specific day or it was going to be 2025. Finally she told me she would add me to the list if someone canceled. She asked my last name again. I spelled it out. Then she said, “And your first name is Nancy?” I said, “Matthew.”

Why does everyone think I sound like a woman?

For the record, I got in on the day I wanted. I thought this would just be a filling like the previous time I had one. But it wasn’t as easy. I didn’t expect it to be so involved as it was. The chip actually got part of the back of the tooth and they had to reshape the tooth. They asked me before if I had eaten breakfast and I told them yes. They said you thought ahead. My appointment was at 8:00 a.m.

They numbed the area before they did the procedure. My whole left side of that area and my face was numb. It felt so weird touching my face after. I almost thought I wasn’t going to be able to eat lunch. I couldn’t feel anything like my teeth, mouth, and tongue. They warned me to be careful not to bite my tongue if I attempted to eat. It eventually wore off.

I came out with a fixed tooth and a hefty bill, $434.

For those new here, I recorded a few sentences with my voice. Everyone on the previous post said I do not sound like a woman. You can be the judge below.

Your Turn

Here is my voice. I wanted to read this whole post but I started laughing when I got to the funny parts, so I didn’t want to do a bunch of editing. So here it is. A small sampling.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this updated story. As soon as the receptionist called me a woman’s name, I knew I had another story to add to the original post. It’s funny how we come across these stories to write. We hear things every day that we can make into a story. This just shows that we can never run out of ideas.

All I ask is why me? LOL!

Until next time, happy reading.

-Matt

If you liked this story, please feel free to like it and send it to someone that will get a good laugh.