I had one of my interesting bouts on the telephone last week. No, not a cold caller or one of those annoying touchtone, no human being calls. It all began when my wife noticed as she checked through her busy schedule that we would be traveling on the day we had to drive her mother to a long-standing appointment with her eye doctor. "See if you can cancel her doctor for that day and set up a new appointment for a day or two after we get back," she instructed me as she breezed through the door.
"Good morning," I said to the receptionist." I have to cancel an appointment and schedule another one."
"Okay," she said cheerily. "I can handle that, which date are you canceling."
"Let's see," I said. Hold on, can't find my glasses - have to check the calendar - oh yes, here it is: July 2nd."
"That's a Sunday, sir," she explained. "Try again."
"Oh yes, of course," I said. "I must have been looking at the wrong year," I said sheepishly. "Make that, July 3rd we have to cancel."
"Fine, and the reschedule date that you'd like?"
"Well, let's see," I said. "Oops, give me a minute, the calendar slipped off the refrigerator door. Okay, okay - ha, it slipped under the dishwasher but I can see it; yes, here it is. So let's see, make that July 6th, please. Just give me a minute to double check; yes July 6th it is."
"Mr. Meister, would you like to wait until your wife gets home to check out
those dates?" the receptionist asked.
"No, I nailed this one, you won't be needing an eraser," I chortled, triumphantly.
"Okay, see you then," she said.
As the reader must have guessed by now, my better-half explained that I did make a mistake with the dates: we were flying into New York on the 5th - laying over for one night, and not getting back to Florida until late on the 6th - hence no appointment possible until the 7th at the earliest.
