On Monday, I showed you some recent text messages with a wrong number. At the time, I believed a confused person had message the wrong phone number while trying to reach a friend. In fact, I created a whole imagined scenario.

In my mind, Linda (the intended recipient) and Ruth (the confused Floridian sender) were long-estranged sisters who had recently taken tentative steps towards a reconciliation. Ruth magnanimously attempted to ask Linda to her party. But as a result of my responses, Ruth now thinks Linda is only willing to come if there is cake, and she is simply aghast.

My pal Stephen H. put a bit of a damper on this amusing fantasy, however, when he told me he had previously received a similar text. In his words, “I’ve gotten the birthday SMS spam as well. It starts with cake but I assume it ends with you texting your social security number to a stranger”. Though I expressed that I hoped it was indeed a real message and that my hijinks were not simply received by a bot or spammer, the very next day, the illusion was shattered. It was then that I received the same text from three additional numbers.

I can’t explain why I got three more of these in quick succession. It’s possible a prank was being played on me by one or more OFT readers, but spam seems the most likely scenario. Wherever the truth lies, no one ever responded to me, and I never got any cake.