Long-distance Shakespeare

The phone rang this afternoon and what followed was one of the strangest phone calls we've ever received. Whenever the caller ID on our phone says "unknown name" or "unknown number" I usually don't answer but Matt does. He actually likes taking phone surveys and things like that. So I handed the phone to Matt because I wasn't going to answer it and this is how the conversation went.

Matt: Hello?

British man: Henry the fifth, act 1, scene 3 (or something to that effect, I might have the numbers wrong)

He then proceeded to quote Shakespeare's play, Henry V, for the next few minutes

Matt: (interrupting him) Who is this?

British man: continues quoting Shakespeare.

Matt: Who is this? Henry is dead.

British man: I live in England. I felt like reading Shakespeare.

Matt: Do you know where you're calling?

British man: I just dialed your number at random.

Matt: So you're paying long distance for this?

British man: I'm using Skype (I guess this is some type of phone service through the internet that is cheap)

Matt: You really should lay off the marijuana.

British man: I'm clean, mate. I am drinking some ale with a friend. (That explains it.)

Matt: Let me give you a number to call.

British man: Okay, hold on (he gets something to write with)

Matt: Call this number and ask for Steve (Matt then gives this stranger the cell number of his friend, Steve Skidmore)

British man: Okay, I'll call.

Matt: I'm not going to lie to you. You seem like a nice bloke but I really don't have time for this right now.

They both hang up.

Not five minutes later the phone rang again with the same "unknown name, unknown number" on the screen and I told Matt not to answer it again. The answering machine picked up and to my suprise, our British gentleman actually left us a message.

Message: Hey McCann's (oh great, he got our last name off the answering machine) this is England again, Shakespeare guy. Um, so Steve did NOT like the Shakespeare. So sorry about that. Bye.

Matt immediately texted Steve to see if the guy had called him and the response he got back simply said "What the h*** was that?" When Matt told him about his phone conversation the next text from Steve was him calling Matt and idiot and telling him that he was going to sign Matt up for the army.

I'll be honest, I listened in for a little bit of the Shakespeare recital on the phone and something about hearing it in a nice British accent was pretty nice. Don't get me wrong, it's incredibly strange and a little creepy but he seemed like he really just wanted to read some Shakespeare. Hopefully he's over that little urge and won't be calling back anytime soon.