Can you hear me now?

I received a phone call today on my cell phone.

Me: Hello?

Woman: Hi.

Me: Hi.

Woman: Hold on a minute. Honey, take the phone.

Man: Hello?

Me: Hi.

Man (in a deep voice): Where are you located?

At this point I needed to stop and assess my world view. There are a lot of answers to a question like "Where are you located?" My first instinct would be to say, "The guest room, folding laundry." Two problems with this answer: one, "Where are you located?" makes it sound like a more specific location is being inquired about. Second, he didn't ask me what I was doing.

So I thought some more. Perhaps I should say, "I am located in the center bedroom on the southern side of my house, a room which we refer to as the guest room"? I began to suspect that he *knew* where I was located and was testing me in some way. He wanted to know if I was honest, wanted to know if I was the kind to play cat and mouse games. But no, not me. Not with strangers. I learned my lesson that time I ended up running down the streets of Las Vegas, taking instructions from a creepy disembodied voice coming from my cell phone while a cabal of criminals tried to take their ill-gotten gains back from me. Or maybe that was a movie I saw, I forget.

Man (impatient): I am located on [some streets not near your neighborhood*].

Me: I think -- Yes. I think you have the wrong number.

Man: Is this Half Price Pots?

Me: No, it is not.

Man: You dialed the wrong number.

Woman (shrieking): Honey, I dialed the same number as last time!

*Click*

Me: Good-bye.

* They were, in fact, calling from Bellevue, Washington. They had put the wrong area code in.