[November 29, 2008]

Getting stuff taken care of on the phone

Nov 29, 2008 (The Edmond Sun - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Ring-ring. "Dr. Dofunny's office. Can you hold please?"
The receptionist takes my grunt as a "yes." The line goes cold. I know the routine: She files her nails, refills her coffee cup and empties the trash. I hold.

I'm holding as I write this. I do a lot of that. This time there's no music blaring in my ear. That's good. But I'd rather be hearing the results of my blood test. I've waited two weeks. That seems long enough, but I guess not.

"Yes, still holding." (She's back. I tell her what I want.) "Yes, I'll wait." Tum-tum-de-dum. (She's back again.) "Oh, okay."

The good news is there's either nothing wrong with my blood or else I'll die happy believing there isn't. I think she hung up first.

The first of this month I tried to order a birthday cake. I started calling the bakery on a Friday, hoping to pick it up a week from that day. No answer. Just one of those "Leave a number where you can be reached" messages, which I did. I waited some more. No callback.

The weekend passed. The bakery is closed Mondays, so I phoned Tuesday.
Ring-ring-ring. "Delightful Confections, can you hold please?" The voice assumes I will, so I do. For a very long time. Then, "Yes?"

"I'd like to order a cake for Friday. ..." I shell out the details and get as far as my credit card number before she says: "Can I call you right back?"

Well, yes, I guess she can. But she doesn't. I wait two hours before I dial her up.
Ring-ring. "Delightful Confections. ..."
I interrupt before she can ask me to hold. You have to be fast to do that, and I am. "About the cake," I say. "Forget it." Click. It felt good. Except I still didn't have a cake.

I phoned a grocery store chain next and told the bakery person what I wanted. Or maybe it wasn't the bakery person. You decide. Before I cancelled this second order -- which I did two days later -- I talked with that person half a dozen times. Each time, she relayed my questions to Someone Else, and then Someone Else's responses to me. The Wizard of Oz, for all I know. Neither of them knew squat.

My intention was to order a birthday cake to feed twelve. A triple-decker. Bakeries make those, you know. A three-layer cake is not a sheet cake. If you agree, would one of you please phone the grocery store bakery and back me up? Use one syllable words.

You might also mention that lettering is something you can write in icing on top of a tall, round cake. The kind that will make a woman's birthday go down easier. Not a sheet cake, about which I was told, "Hon, we can get lettering to fit on a sheet cake, but it won't fit on a round cake."

"Forget the Happy Birthday," I suggested. (You can see how desperate I was.) "Just write her name."
"No room. Sorry."
It was a pleasure to cancel that time. I was eloquent. Practice makes perfect.
The third cake was made by an elf who lives in Elfland. It was tall, delicious and beautifully lettered. And it arrived on time. The trick is to let someone else do the phoning. Who would have thought it?

Last month I waited a week for the Geek Squad to show up. The Geek's car wouldn't run. I don't know for sure that it would have run if someone else had phoned, but I'm betting it would.

MARJORIE ANDERSON is an Edmond resident
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