867-5309

867-5309 was a campus number while I was in college. It was actually (401) 867-5309. The number was for a freshman double in Keeney. Apparently, the two girls who lived there were foreign students. They didn't know the song. They couldn't understand why people kept calling them at all hours of the day, drunkenly reciting it. Sometimes at unreasonable decibels, sometimes aggressively. Sometimes mockingly. They had to change the number because one of the girls, the Pakistani one, not the Korean one, was about to have a nervous breakdown. She threatened to transfer or go back home to her country. And her parents called the Dean of Admissions and told him they were deeply disappointed in the quality of life the college had to offer their daughter. So now it doesn't exist anymore, the number. I only heard this story. I didn't know either of them so I don't know if it's actually true.*

I thought about this the other day because of the elderly man who sang it at a karaoke bar in Burbank. It sounded dirty when he sang about finding Jenny's number scrawled on a bathroom wall. Maybe it wouldn't have sounded as dirty if he weren't as old.

*I embellish stories I can't corroborate. Sometimes I just tell them coolly. Embellishment and tone are the keys to good storytelling.