A couple of days ago a lady from Blockbuster called to let me know that the envelope I had used to return some movie was empty. Oops!

Here’s the problem – I don’t have a Blockbuster account, have never had a Blockbuster account, and to the best of my knowledge have never rented a movie from Blockbuster. The Blockbuster lady asked for my phone number, which she then confirmed was the phone number on her paperwork, but I again exclaimed that it wasn’t me who had rented that movie. I reasoned that either a) someone had knowingly (and falsely) used my number, or b) the previous owner of my phone number was a Blockbuster deadbeat.

Then, a couple days later I received a call from a gentleman in Ottawa complaining about his “Bird’s Nest.” A similar call followed the very next day – This time from Des Moines. When I told each that I had no idea what they were talking about and suggested they had a wrong number, they repeated the number and guess what? It was my number!

Out comes Google and in minutes I find a local company (now defunct) that made bird’s nests with internal TV cameras. Presumably you could hang one of these in your garden, and then spy in on the birds that used it. I found old setup and instruction guides in a web cache.

There was a time when ”Ma Bell” would hold onto a phone number for years before recycling it, but with VoIP and disposable mobile phones chewing up new numbers like candy, it should come as no surprise that any number you receive today could have been in use by someone else just a few months ago.

My only question is why I have the numbers of Blockbuster deadbeats and defunct manufacturers? Why can’t I have the number of a recent lottery winner whom the state is looking for to bestow some multi-million dollar award upon? Why?