Between 2 and 4 a.m. on weekends, UCLA student Shira Barlow’s cell phone rings off the hook with calls and text messages. The messages ranged from happy birthday wishes to requests to be included on guest lists.

For the longest time Shira didn’t know why she was getting so many wrong numbers.

“Baby girl, how are you?” a man purred in a foreign accent.

“Why are you doing this?” one woman asked. “This is so rude.”

At first Barlow, a junior communications major, thought the random references to “Paris” were some kind of nickname.

“I didn’t make the connection,” Barlow said.

It all started on Valentine’s Day when Barlow put her phone in her back pocket while on a night out with friends. At some point during the night the phone fell into a toilet. When she went to replace the phone she was assigned a new number because of area code changes.

And so Shira’s big Paris Hilton adventure began.

Just after Barlow got her new phone, a flurry of calls and text messages came within days of Hilton’s Feb. 17 birthday.

“Oh my God,” a caller said. “Where’s the party?”

One weekend, Barlow said she answered a call and was lectured by an unidentified woman who got angry when asked if she was calling from Florida.

“I’m so insulted. You must be on drugs,” the woman said before calling back five times to lecture Barlow.

Another time, she had a long conversation with an aspiring rap artist who, after learning he was not talking with Hilton, still invited Barlow to a party.

Then came the day Hilton went to court for violating probation after pleading no contest to an alcohol-related reckless driving charge, and was sentenced to jail.

Calls and texts that previously inquired about parties were replaced by dozens expressing their condolences.

“People were scared for her,” Barlow said.

The phone traffic trailed off when Hilton entered jail last month. But since Hilton was recently released, a new crop of communiqués is flooding Barlow’s telephone.

There was Hilton’s former bodyguard who sent his love. A girlfriend called to commiserate and lend support, as did many text messages.

“It’s disgusting how they treated you in there, but once again you have showed the world that you can do anything,” one wrote.

Barlow said she has resisted the temptation to pose as Hilton to get herself and friends on the guest list of exclusive parties.

But she did message supporters “thanks so much,” believing Hilton would appreciate it.

Barlow plans to keep the number because she says it has been a greater source of amusement than a hassle.

“It was really out of convenience,” she added. “I didn’t want to switch again.”

There’s no telling where all this will take Shira. Anything can happen!

ciao, hazel