Life As We Know It

Thank you for calling ^%$#@

Beware of being thanked for calling. Can you Imagine how much more grateful they’d have been if you hadn’t called?

Listen carefully. Our menu options have recently changed.

Their menu options change more often than Izzy’s Deli. Do they get some pleasure from doing this? Pity the poor guy who has just hit “3” and got disconnected because he didn’t listen carefully even though that worked yesterday.

If you are a Civil War veteran, press one.

If you're a terrorist and wish to turn yourself in for enhanced interrogation, press two.

If you are a visitor from another planet, press three.

If you just went out the wrong exit in a parking lot and experienced severe tire damage, press four.

All other calls remain on the line.

What if I am all four of the above?

Your call is very important to us and will be answered in the order received.

If it’s so important why are you putting me through all this? Must I continue listening to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons? I feel as if I’m in the fifth season. I’ve read the entire newspaper including the temperature in Tegucigalpa. I’ve looked at the obits and I think I spotted myself.

We are experiencing an unusually high call volume.

What if I called back between midnight and three? Have you ever not experienced a high call volume? If you had more than one operator this occurrence would be less usual.

Your expected wait time is one hour and forty minutes.

Translation: Only a loser would continue to hold….shut-ins or people who are wasting their lives anyway or lonely folks eager to have someone to talk to since they have no friends or just returned from their dentist who wouldn’t let them get a word in except for a grunt and occasional spit.

You can always go on-line and access our frequently-asked question page.

What they’re really saying is that there is nobody there and never has been except for the guy who comes in three times-a-week to change the menu.