Etc...

Sorry, she's on the other line

By all accounts, Katie Kamar is a popular teenager. Case in point: People have been calling her new cellphone at 1 a.m., at 2 a.m., at 5 a.m., as she puts it, "24/7." So, when she picked up a voice mail message the other day, she wasn't surprised when the caller began, "Hi, Katie, this is Governor Granholm." That's because many of those calls – "like, 10 a day" – had been for, yes, Jennifer Granholm (D), Michigan's chief executive. And that doesn't count messages that were left when Katie wasn't answering. Must be some mistake, right? Yes and no. The calls presumably were placed by people with a legitimate need to speak with Granholm. What Katie, who lives in Lansing, the Michigan capital, didn't realize until recently was that her number was a reissue; it had been the governor's until she gave it up last year. Rather than become exasperated, however, Katie decided to try solving the problem by being helpful. On live calls, she'd say: "You should call her office; this isn't her number anymore." She'd also call back the people who'd left messages and explain the situation. As for that message from the governor herself, it was to apologize for the inconvenience and to say "Thank you" for Katie's courtesy. The teenager plans to keep the number. "It's been interesting," she told reporters. "But this experience hasn't given me any political aspirations."