May 12, 2006

To call or not to call

OK…it’s an unwritten rule and I know everybody is different.
I, personally don’t expect to receive phone calls before 9am or after 9pm (unless it is prearranged, like my folks in Europe). In return I do not call people before or after nine.

So this morning when I received a phone call at twenty minutes past seven I looked at the number and ignored it (several seconds later a message beeped). Luckily it wasn’t important. I only found that out when the same person rang back twenty minutes later (another message) to inform me they had found what they were looking for.

But of course, this pales into comparison when you consider the 2am phone call to find out how to send flowers to an overseas dearly departed. Yes… this really did happen. About 6 years ago in the middle of the night I was shaken from my slumber with a jolt of ‘what’s happened, who’s died’ adrenaline to find an older male voice (can’t say who, but I married into the family) asking how he would send some flowers to a friend who had died in the States. I can’t recall my reaction, but I would guess it wasn’t all that sweet and ran along the lines of 'try going to the florist, like a normal person'.

Moral : Just ‘cause you’re up with the birds or bats…doesn’t mean everybody is.

(226 words)

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