The Phone Call

Had a funny phone call the other day. Funny peculiar not funny ha ha. In fact it was far from being ha ha. It was very odd indeed.

It was mid-morning. Not that the time of day matters at all. I just put that bit in to add some atmosphere to the story. If the story had happened on Mars for instance there would have been no atmosphere at all!

The phone rang in the living room. That's because that is where the phone usually is. It rang because someone must have dialled our number; although these days few phones have dials anyway.  It's all push buttons these days. Whenever my cell-phone rings, or makes some hideous tuneless music to be precise, I usually press the wrong button and take a photo of my ear.

Anyway, as I was saying. The phone rang and I went into the living room. The curtains were drawn. Everything else was real. The reason the curtains were drawn is because we cannot afford real ones. So we draw curtains on either side of the windows to show that we have curtains. It fools no one; but it makes us feel more affluent than we really are.

I answered the phone. It was a woman who called herself Carol Singers. I don't know what other people call her. It was quite a festive name, I thought. She reminded me of a young pretty lady I knew called Carol Sheets. I wondered if it was her.

"Are you Carol Sheets?" I asked her wondering if she perhaps had married a Mr Singers, probably a rich man who makes sewing machines.

"No," she replied, "I am Carol Singers!"

"How many of you are there?" I asked.

"Only me ..." she said.

"Why then do you say Singers in the plural and not just Singer?" I asked.

"Because that's my name," she said getting irritated.

"OK ..." I mumbled apologetically, "what can I do for you Carol Singers?"

"It's more what I can do for you!" she said enthusiastically, reinforcing the word "I". Which is why I typed it in bold and italics, to make you notice it.

Well, my mind started doing somersaults. What would a young, nice sounding lady, have to offer me so enthusiastically at this festive season? I said young because her voice sounded young. You know what I mean? Some voices have a certain je ne sais quoi if you see what I mean. I don't mean that she was French. Not with a name like Carol Singers in the plural. It's that she sounded vivacious and full of je ne sais pas. This is like je ne sais quoi but different.

Anyway, turns out she works for a new business enterprise opening nearby whereby they provide burial or cremation facilities for one's pets when they die.

"Do you have any pets?" she asked.

"Yes ..." I said losing all enthusiasm for what she had to offer, "we had a goldfish but it drowned! It could not swim, even though I taught it."

"I am sorry to hear it," she said rather falsely, "what did you do with the body?"

"I grilled it for a few minutes and had it on toast!" I replied recalling to mind the indigestion I had as a result.

"Oh ... funny you should say that," she said without batting an eye-lid. Not that I could see her eye-lids from my living room. "We also undertake a pet cremation service. Would that be of any use to you in future?"

"Not really," I replied, "when our cat has run out of its nine lives I'll give him to my wife. She cremates everything she cooks already; so she'll know what to do!"

Carol Singers hung up the phone on me.

Unfortunately, my wife heard most of the conversation.