It all started when I caught a glimpse of my friend, Mark, in a commercial for the Shoot-a-Brew on the Food Network series “Invention Hunters.”

Excited to see the invention is making its way to our DVR (at 8 tonight on the Food Network), I texted Mark and a few other friends to share the news.

A long time passed before a text appeared from Mark asking only, “Who is this?”

Now, Mark and I don’t text often, maybe three times per year. It didn’t surprise me that my number wouldn’t even be programmed into his phone. His wife is one of my best friends, and I usually only communicate with her.

This seemed like a perfect chance to joke around with Mark, though, which is why I replied by saying I was Heather Locklear, using Julie Dunlap’s phone. And, because the 13-year-old I harbor not too deep inside thought it would be funny, I added a line about being Heather’s body double.

Quite a bit of time passed before I received a five-part text from a man claiming I had just tried to contact his wife. He wanted to know, among other things, who I was as well as information about Heather Locklear’s real identity.

At this point I realized not only had Mark changed his number, but not everyone recognizes a 40-year-old woman overcome by a moment of immaturity when faced with her.

I immediately sent a heartfelt and humble apology to the gentleman and his wife explaining that I had the wrong number, begging their forgiveness and wishing them a happy anniversary, which, as the man had pointed out in part two of his text series, they were celebrating that day.

Shaking, I called my bestie to confirm her husband’s number.

“Sure! It’s nine-” she happily started before I cut her off. The number I had texted earlier began with a seven.

“Oh, crap,” I sighed, filling her in on Mark’s former number’s new owner. Apparently Mark had changed numbers just a few months earlier but failed to mention this to his entire contact list, and now some poor couple had their first wedding anniversary interrupted with what they saw as thinly veiled harassment by someone posing as Heather Locklear.

Suddenly my phone rang. It seemed the man still questioned my motive.

I, too, questioned myself. And I wished for a time machine. But, with both my and Heather Locklear’s reputations to uphold, I had to face the music.

I answered the phone by launching into the longest, most awkward apology of my life. Still unconvinced, he asked if he could verify my identity.

And this is where you come in.

Rather than giving him access to my Facebook page as he requested, I directed him to the Lawrence Journal-World, where I’m hoping he will finally agree, after reading about braces, bad perms and toilet-trained cats (and maybe some character references from my readers?), I am definitely not Heather Locklear.