I have been sifting through some of the messages and comments that I received as a result of my “possible viral connection” post (= September 28). A bit overwhelming…so I decided to stop for a few minutes and write an amusing (?) little story…
This is actually quite a long saga that I will do my best to stuff inside a nutshell: for more than a year now, we have wanted to change internet providers. The company we had used since we moved into this house had become too expensive and slower than other providers. But changing providers isn’t as easy as it sounds…
For some inexplicable reason, our “old” provider refused to free up our line. We tried all sorts of approaches—nice, reasonable…and finally, exasperated and angry. Stefano even threatened the company with legal action. In January, in a last-ditch attempt to force their hand, we stopped paying our monthly bills. Incredibly, nothing worked. Our line was still active, which meant that we spent several months (until a few weeks ago) with free Internet service. You would think that getting free DSL would be fabulous, right?
But no, it wasn’t. We knew that this couldn’t go on forever. Indeed, Stefano was worried that one day our former company would wake up, smell the coffee and sue us for back payments. So we went ahead and took drastic measures: we changed our phone number. A bit of a drag…
But at the time I didn’t know how much of a drag it would turn out to be. Almost immediately, I began getting calls of this type…and no, I am NOT KIDDING (except the questions were/are all in Italian, of course, as were/are my answers):
“Pronto? Giuseppina, are my shirts ready?”
“Giuseppina, listen, I need my suit asap…”
“Pronto? May I speak with the manager?”
“Ciao Giuseppina, when can I stop by to pick up my blanket?”
Giuseppina??? Shirts? Suits? Manager? Blankets? Whaaat?
I checked online and discovered that our new number—which we cannot change now without going to a lot of trouble, not to mention expense!—had recently belonged to a very popular dry cleaning service that had moved to another part of town…
Since our “new” number is still listed under “dry cleaners” on various Florentine business websites, I will probably keep getting daily calls from company reps wanting to sell me all sorts of stuff, from sausages and cheeses made in the Italian region of Calabria (I didn’t make that up–it really happened!) to amazing, futuristic dry cleaning equipment/products. Aaaaagh!!! 
Perhaps I should just give up and start my own dry cleaning service…My cats could help me untangle the wire clothes hangers, for example (see photo)…
Well, actually, things could be worse. Years ago, a close Italian friend of mine was assigned a new phone number after she and her family moved to their current home. They began receiving very, er, peculiar calls…mostly at night…Their number, you see, used to belong to an…uhm, how can I put this politely?…an escort service…(Ah yes, they had to change it)…
Every day, when Stefano gets home from work, I give him a list of my daily dry cleaning calls. Instead of sympathizing, however, he laughs, which makes me hope with all my might that one day, while he is at home and answering the phone, we will have a flurry of dry cleaning business calls…
After he gets called “Giuseppina” for the umptieth time, we’ll see who’s laughing! 🙂