American journalists were given a post-April-Fool’s-Day surprise on Thursday when they tried to conference into a call with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Security Advisor James Jones at the G20 conference in London – and were instead met with a sultry voice asking if they felt like “getting nasty.”

(No, it was not Hillary Clinton.)

The White House apparently sent an e-mail to the journalists containing an 800 number that behaved a lot more like a 900 number.  The reporters were subsequently able to get through to their slightly less racy call by dialing a second international number.

Accidentally dialing a phone-sex hotline when you’re expecting Hillary Clinton might give most people a bit of a chuckle, but “most people” apparently do not include the White House spokespeople.  Thomas Vietor dismissed questions about the number with a “Lots of important issues to cover today!” and then noted that he hadn’t called it, and that those asking about it should “call such numbers on your free time!”  Deputy White House Press Secretary Bill Burton was a little more direct: “A corrected phone number on a press release is probably one of the stupider things FOX News has covered lately.”

You might wonder how such a mistake might be made and why a toll-free number would be a sex hotline in the first place, and on that we have some accidental insight.  Those of you who saw the CafePress-o-Pedia video may have noticed an ordering slate at the end that contains a toll-free number.  That number is in fact our Customer Service number, but that’s not the original number that we had there.  In fact, the original number was a made-up number that spelled something to indicate that the video was an April Fool’s joke, and we did dial it to make sure that nothing was on the other end of it.

Apparently, we misdialed that number the first time.  And be “we” I mean… er, “I.”

On March 31st, we re-dialed the number just to be sure and were shocked to hear a woman’s voice that had some messaging very similar to what White House reporters got yesterday.  It seems that sex hotline folks are getting crafty, and are grabbing 800 numbers to hijack hapless mis-dialers and direct them to paid 900 numbers.  Which is to say that the 800 numbers are advertising the paid numbers.

In any case, unlike the White House we caught the error and did a quick edit.

And that is why we today thank our elementary school teachers and Santa Claus for reminding us to check our work.  Twice.