It started, supposedly, in Scarborough; how long ago I cannot say. But it got legs last week in Portland and went out over the Internet; by the time you read this it may have spread worldwide.
It all began just before Thanksgiving when a Scarborough resident driving down the Black Point Road struck a deer. We’ll let him remain anonymous, but here’s what happened, as related in an e-mail to my wife, one of his co-workers at a Portland-based national event marketing company.
“I was about 1/3 mile past the intersection with Route 1. It was a full-size doe that came charging out of someone’s property and crunched the front panel of my car in. I had about a second to slam on the brakes and swerve but it still got me pretty good. I turned the car around, put my high beams on and didn’t see the deer anywhere. I even got out of the car and looked around but nothing. My guess is that it was pumped full of adrenaline and may have bolted into the woods by the road that goes down to the Eastern Trail.”
Wait a minute, you’re saying. Have I got this right? A driver on a quiet Maine road at night strikes a deer that jumps in front of his car? This is news? How so? Get back to me when a deer driving a car strikes a man that jumps out of the woods. That will be news.
The story of this guy nailing a deer on the Black Point Road isn’t newsworthy. What happened afterward isn’t newsworthy, either, but it’s at least worth telling. He asked a neighbor who had some body work done on his car recently for a referral. He was given the name and number of a local automotive repair shop that also did light body work.
He called the number and nobody answered. But an answering machine kicked in and the outgoing message was so remarkable it soon had everybody in the Portland office of this national corporation talking about it.
The message said: “Hello you finance companies that are calling this number. You ain’t getting anything. Are you smart enough to comprehend what I just said? Do whatever you want to do.”
That was followed by a beep, but the Scarborough resident decided not to leave a message. Instead he told a co-worker, who dialed the number and couldn’t believe what she heard, either.
It seemed kind of odd that it belonged to a business; the greeting did not identify the company by name or number. But that didn’t stop her from telling another co-worker, who soon told another.
Before long it not only made the rounds of the Portland office, but colleagues in the company’s 10 other locations scattered across the country had begun dialing it, too.
That was when my wife sent me an e-mail with the number and suggested I call it. “You’re not going to believe what this guy’s message says” she wrote. When I called the number I realized she was right. The odd, vaguely threatening, hastily recorded greeting caught my attention.
But was it real? I looked up the name of this supposed business in both the phone book and via a reverse on-line phone directory. It was assigned to a land line out of Portland, but no other information was available.
A Google search of the telephone number and the name of the business came back with nothing. The whole thing, I decided, was just a joke, a strange and inexplicable ruse.
And I still think it may be, but none of that changed the fact that the number was being forwarded to people who were forwarding it again, and again. The next morning it was sent to me by a former co-worker in Boston who had gotten it from a mutual friend in Chicago, who thought I might get a kick out of it since it originated in the 207 area code.
I thanked him, but didn’t reveal that I not only knew about the number, I’d called it several times myself. I mentioned nothing about its Internet presence having begun with my wife’s company in Portland, or that it originated with a co-worker who lived in Scarborough.
I cannot say if the greeting is meant to be serious, but I have to assume that it is. As far as humor is concerned, the best that can be said is it provokes nervous laughter. The whole matter is an amusing, provocative product of a mind devoid of circumspection.
Bill collectors and finance companies are probably used to deadbeats ignoring their calls.
But an outgoing message like this one leaves no room for interpretation. The debtor is displaying more than an unwillingness to pay; he’s added hostility to the mix. And he’s done so on a recording that could one day be played in a judicial proceeding.
I hope you get to hear it before that happens. I’m sorry I can’t give you the number, but you might want to check your e-mail. Someone else might have done so already.
–James Horrigan