Roger works in Tavistock.
And I work in Stratford.
That’s not exactly half a world away.
So, when one of us wants to make a business telephone call to the other, how hard can it be to get through?
We both live in small towns. How busy can either one of us be?
But recently, the two of us spent a day and a half trying to chase each other down through Ma Bell’s 10 miles of lines from here to there.
He called me first. I wasn’t in.
I called him back. He wasn’t in.
He returned my return call. I’d gone home for the day.
The next morning, I placed a return call to his return call to my return call to his original call. He was out of the office.
An hour later, he called me back. When I got back from my coffee break, there was a note taped to my computer: “Roger called. Please return his call.”
In the time it took us to reach each other by phone, I could have driven to Tavistock, painted Roger’s house, and been home for the 10 o’clock news.
But, that is life in these technological times.
Finally, in the afternoon of the second day, I got through to Roger’s office when he was actually there.
“Do you mind if I put you on hold?” asked his secretary. “He’s on another line.”
“No problem,” I said, just grateful that, at long last, I was about to talk to the man who had called me, about what I still did not know.
As I sat there on hold, a secretary in the office I work in dropped a note on my desk in front of me: “There’s a call waiting for you when you’re through there.”
Someone was on hold, waiting for me, who was on hold, waiting for Roger.
To me, nothing illustrates what a comedy modern life has become better than the next note I received a few minutes later from the secretary in our office.
“Are you going to be on there very long? Roger’s holding for you.”
“No,” I said to her. “I should be free soon.” And I went back to waiting.
Then, like it did for the man who stayed up all night to see the sun rise, it finally dawned on me.
I was sitting on hold, waiting to talk to Roger who was on another line. Roger was sitting on hold, waiting to talk to me, who was on another line.
It was like an episode from The Twilight Zone.
Or should that be, The Twilight Phone?
©1991 Jim Hagarty
