It was Jan. 2, 2016. I was still hungover from my two glasses of wine on New Year's Eve, so there was only one logical thing for me to do: binge-watch Gilmore Girls on Netflix.
I'm not new to Gilmore Girls. My mom and I watched it while it was originally on air, and since it came to Netflix, I've had it on pretty constantly. But this time, I noticed a detail I'd missed before.
Remember the first episode of Season 5? Luke and Lorelai finally kissed in the Season 4 finale, but we haven't seen them together since. Life keeps getting in the way.
So, naturally, Luke leaves Lorelai five voicemails explaining his absence. He even gets a cell phone so they can talk while he's away — and we all know how much Luke hates cell phones.
And as I was listening, I realized something: Luke gives a real phone number in his message. It isn't that "555" deal they usually use in TV and movies — it's a real Connecticut telephone number.
So obviously I had to call it. I had to know if, against all odds, LUKE WAS ON THE OTHER END.
Feeling very nervous, I called. It rang three times, and then someone picked up. "This is Luke's, hello?" I HUNG UP AND THREW MY PHONE ACROSS THE COUCH. The voice really did sound like Luke. IT WAS LUKE. COULD IT BE LUKE?
Then, after the three days it took for me to emotionally recover and redraw the lines that blurred fiction and reality, I called again.
"Hello?" said Maybe Luke. I told him who I was, and how I'd seen this number on Gilmore Girls. "So, haha, who is this?" I asked. "This is Matt," he said. "And my phone rings constantly, every single day."
Matt's only had the number for about a month, but it's ringing all the time, from numbers all over the world. "I started getting these calls, and everyone’s asking for Luke and stuff. And I was like, 'Man, this Luke must have been a popular guy.'"
He's also started having some fun with callers. "Once I played it off like I was Scott Patterson, but the girl knew. She asked how old I was, and I’m 33, and she was like, 'Oh, this isn’t Scott.'"
And somewhat ironically, Matt works as a full-time electrician for the charity New Horizon Living Centers. So the line still kind of connects to a charity, and Matt fixes things! JUST LIKE LUKE.
Unsurprisingly, he isn't much of a Gilmore Girls fan. "No, I don’t believe I am a fan. I’ve seen it before a couple times, but no."
But Matt doesn't have any plans to change the number. "It’s on Netflix now, and that’s where people are getting it from. I don’t think I’m going to change it any time soon. I’ll probably still play with it a little bit."
He hopes that, at the very least, it'll get his charity some attention. "If this means people will donate to our charity, that would be amazing. We could use it. Or you can just donate to me. I might need a psychiatrist soon."
