We have an unlisted number. My friends ask who I’m hiding from and I reply if you were someone I wanted to talk to, you would have my number. Even so I don’t answer the phone unless absolutely necessary, it’s rarely for me. So it was with reluctance I answered it the other night after letting it ring 6 times before I remembered everyone else had gone out.
It was a representative from the electricity supplier, an apologetic young man who was named something or other. Seems he had called earlier in the week and spoken to Mrs. Joe who informed him she was very ill, so he had decided to wait and call again now. She is crafty, Mrs. Joe, and had not been sick at all but had brushed the boy off so that now I had to deal with it. What he wanted to tell me was, in short, the government had given them permission to raise the rates and they were doing it. I now had to, in effect, sign a new contract with them by answering some formal questions which would be recorded. Did I understand the new terms? Did I agree to the new terms? etc.
Well what choice did I have? Was I going to say “No, I do not agree. You have gone too far and I wish to end our relationship. Come remove your unsightly wires from my home!”? No I said whatever was required to keep the electrons flowing. He rambled on in legalize and I soon discovered the correct answer was “yes” to all the questions and after a while both of us stopped listening. Then he said soothingly “That’s it mate, all done” like he knew what I’d been through. Five minutes of my life sucked down a telephone line and stored away just in case anybody wanted to know what my answer sounded like to question 12, was it strained? Did he put enough feeling into it? Can he be trusted with electricity?
When the global warming finishes and bands of rabid Greenies rule the earth they will drag me before the tribunal and play the tapes. “There!”, they will cry, “You see? He asks to purchase electricity, he caused all this. Burn him and do not point out the irony in doing so!”
That’s why I don’t answer the phone.
It was a representative from the electricity supplier, an apologetic young man who was named something or other. Seems he had called earlier in the week and spoken to Mrs. Joe who informed him she was very ill, so he had decided to wait and call again now. She is crafty, Mrs. Joe, and had not been sick at all but had brushed the boy off so that now I had to deal with it. What he wanted to tell me was, in short, the government had given them permission to raise the rates and they were doing it. I now had to, in effect, sign a new contract with them by answering some formal questions which would be recorded. Did I understand the new terms? Did I agree to the new terms? etc.
Well what choice did I have? Was I going to say “No, I do not agree. You have gone too far and I wish to end our relationship. Come remove your unsightly wires from my home!”? No I said whatever was required to keep the electrons flowing. He rambled on in legalize and I soon discovered the correct answer was “yes” to all the questions and after a while both of us stopped listening. Then he said soothingly “That’s it mate, all done” like he knew what I’d been through. Five minutes of my life sucked down a telephone line and stored away just in case anybody wanted to know what my answer sounded like to question 12, was it strained? Did he put enough feeling into it? Can he be trusted with electricity?
When the global warming finishes and bands of rabid Greenies rule the earth they will drag me before the tribunal and play the tapes. “There!”, they will cry, “You see? He asks to purchase electricity, he caused all this. Burn him and do not point out the irony in doing so!”
That’s why I don’t answer the phone.
4 comments:
Your wit makes me sterile.
Yeah. Sorry about that.
Here in Canada you can get all green electricity bought from a company whom use wind turbines. It costs, but I am thinking it will make me feel better, and they probably dont employ wan**rs.
if they lined up all the turbines in the world facing east, would the world speed up?
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