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The collection agency is calling again. I hate it when they call. They’re especially aggressive and rude this time, demanding that I come down to their office to work out an automatic payment plan that deducts from my checking account. If I refuse, they claim they’ll make my life a living hell. They’ll ruin my credit. They’ll contact my employer and garnish my wages. They’ll repossess my car. They’ll foreclose on my house. They’ll kiss my dad on the mouth.

Wait a second. I don’t own a house. Come to think of it, I don’t own a car either. I have an employer, but I’m sure that’s a fluke that will soon be rectified by God. Who is this collection agency calling for again? EDDIE HARRIS JR? What the hell?

Eddie is the man whose phone number I apparently took over when I changed phone carriers in 2009. A collection agency has called me the first Friday of every month, right at 2pm like clockwork, for the past THREE YEARS. It is slowly driving me mad.

It’s a weird relationship. I don’t want to talk to them. They want to talk to Eddie, so technically they don’t want to talk to me either. Yet we talk every month. They ask how my day’s going at the start, and wish me a pleasant afternoon at the end. I tell them to fuck off at the start, and demand that they remove my number from their database at the end. I note that Eddie is clearly never going to be taking back his old phone number. They agree and promise to remove me from their records, and we both hang up knowing full well that they’ll be calling again next month.

I’ve tried everything to get them to stop. I’ve politely asked them not to call anymore. I’ve angrily shouted curse words at them and suggested filthy, FILTHY things about their mothers. I’ve tried to annoy them into not calling, babbling on for five minutes straight about how I love film actor Ed Harris and would also very much like to speak to him. I’ve even tried impersonating the operator’s automated recording, to trick them into thinking my number is out of service. Nothing works.

It’s gotten to the point where I’ve given up, and now just enjoy messing with them.

“Oh, you called my boss yesterday? That’s nice. How did that work out? Was Glenn at the nude modeling agency cooperative?”

“My son is counting on those child support payments? Well, I never really liked him anyway. Too ugly. For his last birthday, I mailed his mother a belt, but she never uses it on him.”

“The repo men are coming for my car? Sweet. It should be easy to find. I painted it to look like Kermit the Frog. The horn plays “Rainbow Connection” with accompaniment from Liza Minnelli. Yes, car horns can do that. They’ve advanced greatly over the years. Shut up.”

I tried Googling Eddie Harris Jr. myself. The only information I found was some guy who went to prison in 1989 for dealing heroin. That’s probably him. Sprint should really offer a premium service where you’re guaranteed a phone number that wasn’t previously owned by a deadbeat heroin dealer. There could be little checkboxes on the signup form that are $15 each - “No drug dealer”, “No rapist” or “No slutty girls who get ten calls a week from random dudes, unless you also provide her forwarding number and photo.” And then maybe a $100 “Phone numbers of slutty girls” checkbox.

I think the reason they keep calling is because the first time I answered - three years ago - I actually believed they were calling for me. I was impoverished, I had mountains of credit card debt. I probably should have had at least three collection agencies hounding me. How was I to know the call was for someone else? Since then, I think they’ve just assumed my angry protests are an elaborate ruse.

I told them my name is Paul Ryan, but that just made their suspicions worse. I might as well have told them my name is Justin Bieber. So now I’m in quite the dilemma. I’m pretty sure they won’t stop calling until I fake my own death or change my phone number, yet I’m far too lazy to do either. Isn’t there some way I could just solve the issue by clicking a button online? If we can do it with groceries, can’t we do it with everything else?

I would also like that option for murdering people I don’t like and heaving buckets of pee onto politicians.

I guess I’ll just keep putting up with it. That or register for the domain name www.bucketsofpee.com and get rich off it. The URL hasn’t been registered yet. I checked. It’s unbelievable. There are at least one billion erotic entrepreneurs who should have bought this URL ten years ago. The recession must really be hitting people where it hurts if www.bucketsofpee.com is still out there. Seriously guys, get your shit together.