Once Louis listened to a long rant for the police dept and then said, "Thank you for calling." He looked at me after he hung up and said "They didn't need to hear that."
So finally after years of all hours phone calls, we had our number changed and for many years it was better. But in the past few years, new relationships are being formed! We are now one number off the hospice from Sparks Hospital and a used car dealership with a foreign name, that caters mostly to people who speak broken English at best. Now a new relationship has been formed with another business entity that I've not totally pegged, but it's there none the less.
A few days ago, I got a call from a Bentonville number. When I answered, the woman seemed confused and asked for a specific office and person. What, no long list of options to connect to the right list that would point her to the right office that would give her the option to leave a message or listen to muzak?? I explained that this is a private residence and she hung up. But, in the past few days, I've gotten probably 10 calls a day from that same Bentonville number. When I answer, I get the open line silent treatment: you know the one where you can hear the breathing and feel the unasked questions over unfamiliar background noises. It's like when your spouse or teens stand in front of the open refrigerator looking to see if something has materialized that wasn't there 10 minutes ago. I'm really curious to find out just who this person is trying to reach.
I have a creative mind and have come up with all kinds of scenarios. When I'm busy, sometimes I don't answer, but most times, I just can't help myself. I've thought about making a list of numbers she could push that would lead her to more numbers to push that eventually would lead her to the fact that this is a private residence in another city. But so far, it's just in the planning stages.
One iteration of my checkered past was to order chemicals for the maintenance crews at the local YMCA in Denver. I have dyslexia that seems to attach itself randomly but persistently certain combinations of letters and numbers. At that time I would transpose 3’s and 5’s, 36 becoming 35 and vise versa.
ReplyDeleteThe transposed number in this case was a lawyer’s office rather than a chemical supplier. The receptionist grew so used to my calls that she would cheerily greet me and forward my call on through their PBX. Now it has attached itself words ending in cle. I put pickals on the grocery list recently. Really, I can spell pickle.
Maybe your caller has dyslexia?
Several years ago I had a student in public school that was not retarded, but had special education issues. He would do outlandish repulsive things that I will not even grace with type. If you got onto him he would say "Uh, my bad." So one day we were having a teachers meeting and the subject of "Richard" came up. I listened as each of the teachers wailed out her own story of his impropriety. One of the special ed teachers said she didn't even know how to classify him. So I offered DAR as a possibility and received curious concentrated looks. Dumb as a Rock. The head of Spec Ed said with wide eyed wonder " We could use that!"
ReplyDeleteI have dyslexic children and am mildly so myself. But I don't hang on to the effects after the fact. It does make me laugh inappropriately sometimes.
ReplyDelete