Don’t you just hate automated telephone answering services? “Please press one for new sales, press two for an enquiry for a previous sale and three if your enquiry is about something else” What it should really say is “If you press one, because we still want your money, we will put you through to a human being. If you press two your call may be answered, if you are lucky and only during normal hours. We already have your money and therefore don’t need to be quite so keen to look after you. If you press three you will be put through to someone who can’t help you. This is because our statistics show that you were clearly not planning to give us any money.” If that isn’t bad enough they put on ‘soothing’ music whilst you are waiting for no one to look after you, which is usually something so irritating that if they did answer the phone you would struggle to resist the desperate urge to shout at them as soon as they did. It wouldn’t have been so bad but as it turned out I had rung the wrong number and had waited forever, after pressing two, to get through to someone who had no idea what I was talking about. They gave me another number, again of someone that couldn’t help. They in turn gave me another number and that person gave me the number of the person I had rung first time who said it wasn’t anything to do with them. When I rang it the second time the person that answered said it was them and they couldn’t understand why the first person had said it wasn’t. By the end of it I really wished I hadn’t bothered in the first place.
I am alarmed at the number of people who are coming to stay with us this summer. Do you think it is just because we have a swimming pool or do they actually want to see me too? I do hope they are all prepared to play with me and none of them do the ‘oh I don’t like dogs, can you shut him in another room?’ routine. There is nothing more galling than lining all your toys up ready for someone to throw them for you, only to find you are excluded from all the fun. I know my mistress doesn’t like it either and has offered to come and sit in my room with me, or maybe that is to get out of having to look after everyone. Perhaps I should ask for a bigger room with one or two more things in it, including my computer, to make it easier and more fun if I get confined to my quarters. You know, sometimes children don’t seem to understand it is no different than them being ‘grounded’ when they haven’t done anything wrong.