the hounds of hell
Some time ago, I got a land line in my apartment, because ordering pizza on my cell phone counts as a long-distance call. So I've had the phone for about six months now, and in that time I've used it for ordering pizza (Domino's, because it digests better than Pizza Hut), and occasionally calling my car insurance agent, but that's it. Hardly anyone calls me.

Then about a month ago, I started getting the calls for Aaron.

"Is Aaron there?" they'd say.

"Nope, and you've got the wrong number," I'd say, and then hang up.

The caller ID claimed that some of the calls came out of Phoenix, the rest from Seattle. Occasionally calls would register as a local number, but they always went the same way.

"Is Aaron there?"

"Wrong number," I'd say, more curtly this time, and hang up.

I suppose most people would find this irritating, but I didn't really care. I have a cordless phone, so it's not like I have to get up to answer the phone. I only figured this Aaron guy must have been popular, or something, and failed to inform all his fine friends of his new number once he moved, and gave it no further thought.

Then I started getting the calls twice a day. I'd told them, over and over, that it was a wrong number, and they kept calling! Now I was starting to get a bit annoyed, so I figured I might as well entertain myself at the callers' expense. Once when a female caller asked for Aaron, I said this was a wrong number, but since she called me, why not get know each other over dinner and movie?

THAT got her off the line fast! You could practically hear the sonic boom. I got the charm, what can I say?

Another time, the caller asked for Aaron, I said "wrong number", held out the phone at arm's length, and began bellowing a German drinking song at the top of my lungs:

"O wie wohl est MIR ahm A-A-BEND, MIR ahm A-A-BEND, wend zur ruh die GLOCKE..."

Strangely enough, when I put the phone back to my ear, he had hung up. Imagine that!

But the calls kept coming, and when someone called at 10 this morning and asked for Aaron, I was finally curious enough to say:

"Look, I'm not this Aaron guy. I've had this number for six months, and in all that time, no one named Aaron has ever lived here. So just who is Aaron, and why is he so popular?"

There was silence on the other end for a moment. "So...no one named Aaron lives at that residence?"

"Noooooo."

I heard a keyboard clacking. "Then there's no one in your residence who has late student loan payments?"

Ah.

All at once, everything began clear. I live in a neighborhood with a lot of college students. This Aaron must have had my number once, acquired considerable student debt, and then moved without bothering to inform the loan collectors. Not that I blamed him for that.

"Nope," I told the woman.

Then, even over the phone, I could just hear her mind focusing with laser-like intensity, like a shark homing in on a bleeding swimmer. "Do YOU have any student debt, sir?"

"Nope," I said, much more cheerfully. "I graduated debt-free, which means I shouldn't be getting phone calls from hellhounds like your employer."

Thwarted, she hung up then.

I did graduate-debt free, thanks to the long-term fiscal foresight of my grandparents, keeping my GPA high enough to get scholarships, and many long, sweltering summers spent unloading trucks at Wal-Mart, which has to be the Unhappiest Place On Earth. But I got out debt free, and I'm terribly, terribly thankful for that. I know a woman five years my senior, who has a master's degree and makes considerably more money than I do. And yet, because of her student debt, she needs to work an extra 25 hours a week waiting tables to make the loan payments. Because God help you if you miss even a single one.

So I wish good luck to Aaron, wherever he might be, and to everyone else battling a pile of student debt. The cost of college has gotten insane, and that handing student debt collection over to usurious scumbags like the Sallie Mae Company (whose CEO has been paid $225 million in ill-gotten dollars since 1999 alone) is one of the greediest, dumbest, most venal ideas the government has had recently.

Of course, the competition for that honor is fierce.

But I'm sure I'll get the chance to express those views tomorrow, when the phone rings and it's for Aaron.

-JM