Errant Phone Calls Plague Freshmen With Requests

Straus 11-32 is cursed, not by a ghost or a biddy, but by a telephone. David G. Black, Raymond S. Ettlinger, Michael J. Balborstam and John B. Stadler, all freshmen occupants of the room, refer to Mr. Bell's invention as "that damn thing."

When the phone was first installed everyone was quite pleased with the professional sounding number, Eliot 4-4600. They agreed it gave an air of distinction to the room. At 8 a.m. on the next morning the phone rang. Someone wanted to order shirts. More callers that day wanted to buy rugs, bath mats, and diamond bracelets.

The steady stream of wrong numbers continued at a five-a-day clip. It took about a week to discover that the number of the Telephone Shopping Service of Fileno's was ELiot 4-5000, and that Bostonians, in their haste to latch onto a new pair of pants, had been mixing up the phone number of "the world's largest specialty store" with that of four tired freshmen.

"At first we picked up the phone, told them they had the wrong number and hung up," said Ettlinger, "but we missed a lot of important Wellesley calls, so we had to stop."

Other methods of answering included an insulting cross-examination, the reply "This is the Boston zoo, you have the wrong lion," the straight-faced taking of orders, and occasional bursts of profanity.

"We are not looking forward to the Christmas rush season," complained Stadler as he answered an insistant ring. It was someone asking for Dr. Myers. "The National Research Foundation is Eliot 4-5400," explained Black as he left for Lamont.