My Banker Thinks I'm a Drug Dealer
True story and possible pro-tip if you talk to people in prison
When you get phone calls from federal prison, it shows up as a Washington DC number and "Potential Spam" (at least on iPhones). To avoid missing these calls or mistaking them for spam, it's best to save the number in your phone. If you only know one person who calls you from prison, this is easy to do. But, if you're like me, or maybe a lawyer, and you get calls from several different people from prison, you can't save it as one name. At first, I saved the number as "Federal Prison" because, well, that's where the call was coming from duh.
I'm not around a lot of different people and my friends know I talk to people in prison, so I never thought about people peeping my contacts. However, one time I was hanging out with my friend's seven and nine-year-old kids, I got a call from prison and one of them read it. "Why is the prison calling you?" His face and tone showed visible concern. I explained that it was someone in prison calling me. His concern did not fade. "Is he going to stab you?"
I realized I was in one of those weird moments where you are suddenly responsible for parenting someone else's children. Whatever I said was going to color and inform his understanding of prison and criminals forever more. I don't take this responsibility lightly, especially with complex subjects like this, so I thought fast. I explained how not all crimes are violent and not all people in prison are dangerous or scary. Serendipitously, we read a chapter of Dr. Doolittle that night and had a chance to talk more about wrongful convictions and how different people sometimes end up in prison. I'll never tire of how curious children are with topics that most grown-ups steer clear of due to prejudice, discomfort, or fear.
After this experience, I thought it might be smart to change the contact in my phone to avoid any further misunderstandings or awkward situations. I had seen a funny viral video once where a woman is in the car and saw her man's phone ringing and it said, "Pizza Hut is trying to Facetime you." The man was locked outside the car, pounding on the window, freaking out, while she's saying, "Why is Pizza Hut Facetiming you???" The obvious implication is that "Pizza Hut" was the pseudonym for his side piece. I thought it was funny/clever and adopted the idea for my quandary. Instead of getting calls from "Federal Prison," I now get calls from "Dominos Pizza."
Cut to: I'm at the bank doing a wire transfer. I have a mask on because I was recently sick with COVID, but I'm in Florida so I don't exactly fit in. My address and ID was different than my records because I've moved so much, and I had to explain all these abnormalities in my account to the guy. I gave him my phone to copy the wire transfer details and while he was looking at it, "Dominos Pizza" called me like three times. He handed the phone back, saying, not sure if you need to get that. I canceled it, then the person called again. (The person calling had been sent to the SHU after getting sick and only had a couple phone calls a month.) Anyway, I can only imagine what the banker thinks of this nomadic mask-wearing white girl getting incessant calls from "Dominos Pizza." Maybe a pizza delivery girl?
