Dial My Number

This morning, shortly after husband dearest left at 7AM and went to work, I sat quietly, looking at pictures in my RSS feeder, reading blogs and having tea, when the phone rang and made me sit upright to reach out and pick it up.

On the other side was a very irate woman who had just received a parcel in which - as she put it - Everything was broken. I'm still not sure what that has to do with me, but after ten minutes of listening to her explain that service of this standard is unacceptable, I finally told her she had the wrong number and put the phone down. A few seconds later the phone rang again - same woman, same story, except she only got into 4 sentences before I very politely once again told her that she was not speaking to the right people. She phoned back again - this time she asked who she was speaking to and then asked me if I knew who she could contact. Somewhere in her mind, it didn't register that she wasn't even phoning the right company. I explained to her that she had landed at a residential home; she apologized profusely and put the phone down. It didn't take a genius to figure out that it was going to be her on the other side of the phone when it rang again 20 seconds later.

That was the start of my week. I had to smile quietly, while at the same time feeling a tad irritated myself at having to deal with someone with problems that early in the morning. I didn't let it upset me though and finished my tea in my laid back position.

At 8:50 - just as I was leaving the house - the phone rang again. Same woman, same problem, but this time I just didn't have the time or will to deal with her again. I put the phone down and left for work. I'm sure that steamed her even more, but at that stage, it just wasn't my problem anymore, if it ever was.

At lunchtime, I dropped home to have a lovely bowl of noodles and found that there was 39 missed calls on our house phone. I dialed the number for the messaging service and sure enough, the same woman had left me 39 messages, some of them with a very high pitch, others just very loud. She accused me of avoiding her calls (that took a genius to figure out), bad customer service, going to the police and various other things.

I felt a tad bad for her, so I took my mobile, masked the number and phoned her. I informed her that she was harassing me, considering that I had already explained to her that the number she was dialling, was a residential address. She pretended to not know anything about it, at which point I told her that if she phoned our number again, she would find that I was the one answering.

I put the mobile down and sure enough, the phone rang. I picked up and this time I could hear the embarrassment in the voice on the other rend of the line. She apologized and I asked for the company name and number on the invoice - at which point I could not hide my laughter. She had transposed some digits but, I figure, instead of checking the number again against the one she was phoning, kept hitting, hit redial, ultimately ending up at our house.

I still feel bad for her, but now only because she proved herself to be a tad idiotic.