Owner of Telephone Number 867–5309 Says Calls Are Finally Beginning to Taper Off
By: Clem Samson
Tags: Music, Comedy, Humor, Funny, Satire

Owner of Telephone Number 867–5309 Says Calls Are Finally Beginning to Taper Off

It’s been a rough thirty-eight years for Jenny

Photo by Mister Lee on Unsplash

Jenny McPhereson of Toledo, Ohio was only 26 years old when the Tommy Tutone song “867–5309/Jenny” came out. What were the chances of that — like a billion to one? — that she would have that exact number and the same name as the fictional Jenny of the song?

“That first year when the song was a hit, I got like seven or eight thousand calls a day,” she recalls. “It was pretty rough, answering call after call. Then when I wasn’t home my answering machine would fill up so fast. Remember those tapes? I went through like hundreds of those cassette tapes on my answering machine. I had like a hundred thousand messages, people saying stuff to this Jenny they heard about on the song. I called the Guinness Book of World records. I told them I think I have the most messages ever. They said they’d get back to me. They never did. Or maybe they did. But I never did get all my messages of course. There weren’t enough hours in the day to listen to em all. I still have em up in the attic. Would you like to see?”

No thanks, we wouldn’t. But we would like to ask you a few more pertinent questions. What kind of messages did people leave? Were they rude messages? I mean the song says that your number was written on the bathroom wall.

“Yeah, most of them were pretty much like how much for a blank, and will you blank me, Jenny? That kind of thing. And then there’d be a bunch of laughing. Like it was groups people all on the line calling together.”

We see. And this went on for…

“Decades,” she says. “I mean, it was better once I switched to a digital message service. I didn’t have to keep the tapes. And every decade the interest kind of waned. By the oughts I was only getting like a hundred calls a day. And now it’s down to about a hundred a week, to be honest. Nobody really cares about Jenny on the bathroom wall any more.”

She looks a little wistful.

“That must be a relief,” we say.

“Yeah,” she nods, but her voice sounds sad. One of her many cats comes over and sits on her lap.

Jenny, we can reveal, is a cat lady.

“I have thirteen cats, and they’re all black,” she tells us. “That’s double luck, huh? Would you like to know all their names?”

No, we wouldn’t. But she tells us anyway. She’s that kind of person.

Finally, we ask the question we’ve been dying to ask:

“Why didn’t you change the number?”

But as soon as we ask it, we know the answer.

Jenny McPhereson of Toledo Ohio doesn’t get any calls. But Jenny from the Tommy Tutone song does. If she changed the number…you get the gist.

“Well, it’s been very nice meeting you,” she says, seeing us out. “Will you come back again?”

No, we probably won’t. The sweet 64-year-old cat lady gives us a wave and we head back to the Toledo airport. It’s been kind of a sad trip. But still, we can’t get that song out of our minds.

Eight six seven five three oh nine.

You say the number nine like this: ni-ay-ay-ee-ine.

Eight six seven five three oh ni-ay-ay-ee-ine. Jenny you’re the girl for me…