The phone rang once, twice-then someone picked it up. "You got the wrong number!" a man's
voice said before the line went __1__.
But I called again. "I said you got the wrong number!" came the voice. Once more the phone
clicked in my __2__.
How could he know I had a wrong number? So I __3__ a third time. The man said. "Is that
you again?" "Yeah, it's me." I answered. "I wonder how you knew I had the wrong number before
I even said nothing." "None of my business. You __4__ it out!" He hung up the phone again.
I sat there for a short time and then called the man back. "Have you __5__ with it yet?" he
asked. "The only thing I can think of is …__6__ ever calls you." "You got it!" The phone died for
the fourth time.
I rang him again. "Well, I thought maybe I should be the first to __7__ to you." He began to
laugh and told me, "My name is Adolf Meth. I'm 88 years old, and I haven't had so many wrong
numbers in one day in 20 years!" We both __8__. We talked for ten minutes. Adolf had no family,
no friends, just like me. Everyone he had been __9__ to had died.
Since then, we became phone friends. We called each other almost every day. And I told him
about my life and my __10__.
On one phone about a disagreement that I'd had with my boss, I told him, "I think I __11__ have
it out with him."
Adolf said. "Let things __12__ down. When you get as old as I am, you find out that time takes
care of a lot. If things get __13__, then you can talk to him."
"You know," he said softly one day, "I'm talking to you just the way I'd talk to a boy of my own.
I always wanted a family-and children."
One morning, I received a call to tell me he had died the night before. With tears in eyes, I heard
him asking __14__ I wanted to call him again and again. "Because you __15__ to me, Adolf…
( )1. A. busy
( )2. A. heart
( )3. A. tried
( )4. A. keep
( )5. A. got along
( )6. A. nobody
( )7. A. pay attention
( )8. A. joked
( )9. A. pleased
( )10. A. questions
( )11. A. may
( )12. A. cool
( )13. A. less
( )14. A. how
( )15. A. mattered B. dead
B. mind
B. made
B. put
B. come up
B. somebody
B. look forward
B. agreed
B. friendly
B. worries
B. should
B. get
B. more
B. when
B. meant C. bad
C. head
C. managed
C. speak
C. done well
C. everybody
C. introduce myself
C. laughed
C. known
C. problems
C. must
C. calm
C. worse
C. why
C. preferred D. wrong
D. ear
D. answered
D. work
D. gone through
D. who
D. say hello
D. smiled
D. close
D. thoughts
D. need
D. turn
D. better
D. whether
D. replied