‘I’m Blessed’ — Dialing Wrong Number Initiated Twenty Years Of Friendship For Two Strangers From Florida & Rhode Island

Dec 09, 2021

Dialing the wrong number on a phone has been a common occurrence for decades. What is less common is a friendship igniting between two strangers over a misdialed number. This is exactly what happened to Gladys Hankerson from Florida and Mike Moffitt from Rhode Island 20 years ago. They have kept up with each other all these years and are still friends to this day.

It all started when Hankerson was trying to call her sister one day and accidentally dialed the area code as 401 instead of 410. This took her call all the way to Rhode Island where Moffitt picked up the phone. As soon as she heard a man’s voice, Hankerson knew she had dialed the wrong number.

Hankerson apologized but continued to accidentally call twice that day, a week later and then again the following month. After this began happening regularly, Moffitt asked Hankerson who she was and who she was trying to contact. She shared that she was trying to call her sister and that she lived in Florida, and just like that, an easy conversation started between the two of them.

Then Moffitt began calling to check up on Hankerson, and over time, they became friends and regularly called each other and shared information about their lives. Two decades went by like this, and still, the friends never lost touch. In 2021, Moffitt and his family decided to take a vacation to Florida together over the Thanksgiving holiday, and Moffitt knew it was time to meet Hankerson in person. Keep reading to learn more about this heartwarming friendship.

The first time Hankerson called Moffitt it was entirely by mistake. “‘Oh sweetheart, I’ve got the wrong number,’ and hung up real quick,” Moffitt explained “(She) did that a couple of times that day, then the next week, the same thing, maybe next month.”

After so many calls, Moffitt began to grow curious about who was on the other line. “Finally I just grabbed it and said, ‘Wait, wait, wait, before you go, who are you, where are you from, what are you trying to do? And we started talking,” he shared.

Surprisingly, the two strangers hit it off and an effortless friendship was formed. Hankerson said, “I told him, ‘I’m sorry I was trying to call my sister,’ and he said, ‘This is Mike,' I said my son passed away, and he said I’m so sorry, and he talked real nice to me, and I talked real nice to him, and after that, I had his phone number, and I put it down on paper, and I always called him.”

Hankerson added, “During that time I was downhearted, and he felt my sympathy and everything and lifted me up. He was real nice, you know?”

When Moffitt finally made it to Florida, he decided to surprise Hankerson at her house. “I just walked in and I said, ‘I’m Mike from Rhode Island,’ and she just threw her hands up and said, ‘I’m blessed,'” Moffitt said.

The surprise made Hankerson so happy. “Oh, it was such a great day. That was the happiest Thanksgiving there was. That made my day,” Hankerson said. “I wish more people could be like that, you know? That would be so nice. The world would be better too, people would be better.”

Hankerson and Moffitt’s story has also warmed the hearts of hundreds of apost.com readers, many of whom commented on the serendipitous friendship.

“I love stories like that because the world would be a better place if we all could be like that,” Sharon Andrea Harper wrote.

“There are good, kind people in the world and sometimes they are lucky enough to find each other. God bless them both,” Cindy Westbrook added.

Dozens of readers also shared their own stories about surprise friendships and dialing the wrong number.

“I had something similar happen to me. The person who had my number before me must have passed away, because an elderly man with Alzheimer’s would call looking for a ‘Dottie,’” Katherine Nugent shared. 

“He was super sweet, just confused. Sometimes he wouldn’t be able to hear me say I wasn’t Dottie and he would just start talking about his dog, so I’d listen to him speak and have conversation. I don’t get calls for Dottie anymore and haven’t in a few years. I hope he found her again.”

Another apost.com reader named Samantha Turner tagged her friend, adding that that was how their friendship started. “What a great day that ended up being,” Turner wrote.

Missed and wrong connection stories are more popular than you would think.

In 2016, Wanda Dench thought she was texting her grandson to invite him to Thanksgiving. However, it turns out that she was texting a stranger, Jamal Hinton, leading to years of friendship, an annual holiday tradition and coverage in the international news.

This year will mark the sixth year in a row that Hinton and Dench will be celebrating Thanksgiving together — and all thanks to texting the wrong number.

What do you think of this unlikely friendship between strangers? Has anything like this ever happened to you? Let us know and be sure to send this along to your friends and family that could use a smile.