BellyRub called tonight just as I was putting away my sewing project. It had totally frustrated me and I was too angry to work on it and then, ***brrrrrrrrrrrrring!*** there was the phone.
It took us a few minutes to work up to our usual witty repartee. He was watching baseball and commenting on it. The comments were, of course, interjected without a warning. I'm also notoriously bad at understanding mumbles on the phone and in real life so I was getting frustrated. Until he said, "Coco Crisp."
I understand Cocoa Crisp.
I thought he was talking about the cereal, Cocoa Crisp, but no. He was talking about the center fielder for the Cleveland Indians.
Then he said, "If I said C.C. Sabathia, would you think it was a man or a disease?"
I thought it sounded like a dance. "Would you like to si si sabathia?"
So there was that: my baseball knowledge exhausted once I'd said, "It sounds like a dance, to me."
And the other story, from one mistake to another, from my eponymous dance interpretation (rather than interpretive dance) to a misdialed phone call BellyRub received at work. The number for his workplace is similar to one for a computer printer cartridge return and another for an airline. Sometimes he gets people trying to return their ink cartridges. Sometimes people want to book a flight for London. BellyRub can't do a thing about that. That isn't what his company does.
I'm betting that you understand what I'm saying. When you call a person, if you have the wrong number you can't have the same conversation you would have had with the person you meant to call, could you? You want a pizza, but you call your veterinarian instead. You're not going to get a pizza, and the vet will think you're annoying and cuckoo. No, of course you can't have the same conversation with a different person. It would be frustrating for all involved and that's not satisfactory.
The story that BellyRub told me, though, that was satisfactory.
A man called, my brother answered the phone with his company's name. The man said, "I want to know where I'm supposed to send my used ink cartridge."
"I'm sorry. I think you have the wrong number."
"I dialed the number on the box. All I need is the address."
"As I said, sir, this isn't the number that you need to dial. I don't have that address."
"But if you'd just listen to me! I don't want you to do anything for me! I just need you to give me the address to send this thing back!"
"But sir, I don't have the address. This isn't the number to call to get that address. We aren't the same company. I think you'll want to check that phone number and try it again..."
"I dialed the right number! It's right here on the box! I dialed the right number! I need the address!"
"No, really, just try calling the number again..."
"I dialed the right number. All I want is the address!"
Then BellyRub took a stand.
"All right, sir. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to hang up the phone. Then you dial the number on the box again real slow, and if I'm the one who picks up the phone, I'll have that address."
Yes. Just typing them made me laugh because I can hear BellyRub saying, "real slow" very slowly, indeed.
And then he made a new word for me: stubyertoealicious. That's the kind of walkway we have at our parents' house. Dr.Dad says, "Pick up your feet."
So practical.
Posted by dotty at June 22, 2005 11:12 PM