Never give your phone number to transients under any circumstances!
Out of the blue one late August day, I received the following text message from an unfamiliar number:
August 22 11:08 am
Hi hope all is well.
I didn’t want to be rude or admit that I had no idea who was texting me so I replied cordially:
Thanks! You too!
I did a little reconnaissance through iPhone’s archive and I pieced together that it was a former student’s number. We had exchanged contact information on our way to lunch one day just in case one of us got lost on the way to the restaurant. I knew she was in Spain at the time of the mysterious text and she informed me that she had passed the phone on to another person who had also been in my class.
This Thursday, I received an unusual text from the same number:
October 7 6:32 pm
I am willing to pay you a small fee every month to meet your costs but i need to know for sure that you still want to help me.
This message intrigued me. Not many people offer me money and being Jenny Donkey, I couldn’t just dismiss it as a wrong number. Also, for all intents and purposes, the English was good. I indulged it:
I would love for you to pay me. How much are we talking and what do I have to do?
7:34
You marry me n i pay you for doing so by you opening a joint bank account into which a monthly fee to be agreed upon shall be deposited.
The last time someone suggested I do them a favour related to finances I ended up on the hook for over $2000. Who was this stranger and what had I allegedly agreed to? There was a message waiting on my phone that I hadn’t noticed until that moment.
Transcript of phone message—Thursday October 7, 7:01 pm
Yeah … (mumble mumble, name?) I was hoping to get you and maybe speak to you. Uh from your reply it seems like you deen’t uh (reempa) that email I sent you previously because uh I was actually waiting for you to reply to that email but you deen’t. I guess we just have to probably meet sometime and have a discussion … so we can be of the same mind at least and know … what we actually talking about. Otherwise if we send messages thissss way and you (ofta mee) a different way we may not be really understanding each other very clearly. So I think probably it’s best that uh we meet sometime and uh have a genuine conversation about this. Give me a call sometime later. Bye for now.
I didn’t recognize the voice and still can’t place the accent though I’ve listened to the voicemail over and over. My guess is the person is from a country where English is the colonial language. I’ve joked in class about marrying someone for money so perhaps my phone number was sent along to this poor sap with the hope that I might accept the gentleman’s proposition. There’s only one problem: How can I marry someone for money when I won’t even do it for love? I responded to the request as appropriately as I could.
8:32 pm
What planet are you from?
8:45
I am an alien on a planet called earth so my ideas n views are not those of earthlings.
9:04
I’ll say!
9:15
No offence meant,i am just different from most people n it takes awhile for others to understand me.
At that point our exchange took on shades of an IM chat on PlentyofPlankton.com and I had to shut it down.
This is my first marriage proposal. What a romantic notion!
