Waiting by the phone

A morning spent mostly on the phone, or waiting for return calls. I don't like the telephone much, so I feel a little edgy now, but I will trot off to the supermarket soon and carefully spend £40 so that I get a reduced petrol price for Ro and, no doubt, that will soothe me.

I do bless the internet phone. I make calls on that, so ensuring that the landline is free for the incoming call I expect. Juggling two conversations is far less annoying than finding you've missed a call, ringing back, getting the answerphone ...

I hate our cordless phone. It was expensive, but it cannot cope with the thick walls of our house, and does not have a decent reception in most rooms. I soon got tired of resetting the time whenever we had a powercut, so now when people leave a message I have no idea what time they did so. It doesn't work out of doors - the old analogue cordless phone wasn't at all bad, but the digital one is useless. Worst of all, it warbles. The handset in the office beeps faux-melodiously at intervals, presumably to keep contact with the one plugged into the phone line. It makes me swear. And shout.

Did I tell you, a few weeks ago, how I shocked Al and Sarah? I was helping in the shop one Saturday, and in came the Sage. I can't remember what we talked about, but he offered to do something helpful, so I thanked him prettily and said nice things and he left the shop.

At that moment, Travis came on the radio (Al has dreadful taste in radio stations and I hate the wallpaper music it has on) whinging, as for years, "Why does it always rain on meeee?" "Oh shut up and go away, you dreadful boring whining man" I snapped. Sarah's head whipped round and she stared in dismay. "Well, it's so annoying!" I said, slightly abashed, and then noticed Al looking startled too. "I hate that song" I explained. "We thought", said Al gently, "that you were talking about Dad."

"Oh no, how could you, nooo, I've never spoken about him like that, surely you wouldn't? Oh dear. Anyway, he isn't" I spluttered incoherently. Or words to that effect.