Letters...I Get Your Letters

One of the biggest complaints I get from you, my gentle readers and spellbound disciples is:

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? THIS IS MY HOUSE!! WHO ARE YOU?!? GET OUT!!!”

But all that is a matter for the courts to decide…

The second biggest complaint I get usually revolves around these lines:

“Okay. You talk about being a PI. You whine and complain about being a PI. But you never actually tell us how to DO the things PI’s do.” This is usually followed by a string of expletives and suggestions that I do things to myself I know full well are impossible.

Well, not impossible. Nothing is impossible. Possibility is never the problem. It’s probability that rears up and bites you in the ass.

Man, I’m easily distracted. Hey, look at that shiny thing over there!

What the hell were we talking about? Oh yeah, your whiny e-mails.

Well, gentle reader, there’s a good reason I don’t disclose many tricks of the trade. For starters, being a PI is a lot like being a magician. If everybody knew how we did what we do, no one would pay to see the show. And Daddy’s got bills, Shorties.

Secondly, I don’t want to suggest that I don’t trust you…but…uhhh…well, hell…I don’t trust you. For all I know, you want to track down your ex-wife living in Paducah, Kentucky and show her what you think of all those so-called ‘restraining orders’.

But, for the sake of shizzles and giggles, here’s a little trick I use often for reversing phone numbers.

Call 1-888-735-2872. This is the number to a company called Visit Florida. The good folks at Visit Florida have apparently spent a lot of money buying residential data information in an effort to get you to…well… visit Florida. Anyways, when the sexy computerized voice answers, press one for English. A not so sexy voice will then come on and ask you to enter you phone number to verify they have your address in their system. Assuming the number you enter is in their system, they will then read back the numerical portion of your address (but not the entire address). I’ve found that their database frequently includes unlisted numbers, but not always. And cells are a no go.

To which you reply, “What the hell good is this trick?”

Well, angry reader, let’s say you find a suspicious phone number on your hubby’s cell bill. Not that you’d ever snoop like that, but hypothetically. You don’t recognize it, and when you ask directory assistance to reverse if for info, they say the number is non published.

So you do the old Visit Florida trick and get a street number of 239.

Hey wait, doesn’t your former friend Stacy live at 239 Sleazy Lane? You haven’t talked to her since that Christmas party when she got drunk and kept hitting on your husband. THAT BITCH!!!

See how that works?

PS: While you’re out tooling around the web in lieu of gainful employment, check out my buddy Hector’s band’s website. They gig around in the Austin, TX music scene and have a cool Texas Music sound. Plus, they’re called Sigmund Fraud, which gets extra points for cool namage.