How to start the day in careful measure
Some days you wake up and bounce out of bed ready to take on the world. Some days you bounce right out on the floor, flat on your back. It’s probably better to swing one leg out at a time, sit up slowly, and make sure the floor is flat and steady before you stand up. If it’s not steady, and you’re not on a boat, you should probably lay down again. If you do get up, you should run a system scan to see if you are in a good or a bad mood, and if your brain is working. Do you feel good enough to be polite to a telemarketer? If so, you are in an amazingly good mood. Now get out that last medical bill, from either the doctor or the hospital. Does it make the slightest bit of sense to you now? If it does, you’re delusional and should go back to bed. If it still defies the laws of arithmetic you are intellectually normal and can safely proceed with your day.
If today is the day to take your car in to be serviced, you might need a few more brain scans on the way in. Do you know why you’re taking it in, or is it simply that your significant other told you to do it? If you don’t exactly know, perhaps you could either ask the other person again, or have them call the shop and explain it to the service advisor there. Failing that intervention, the interview at the shop can become bazaar.
“Good morning, what can we do for you this morning?”
“I have an appointment”
“Great. And the name is?”
“Smith, or maybe Adams, I don’t know who called it in, it isn’t my car, it’s their car.”
“Okay, what seems to be the problem?”
“I don’t know, I don’t notice anything wrong. It’s my significant other who complains about a noise, but I can’t hear it.”
“Okay, where does the noise come from?”
“Mississippi.”
“What?”
“That’s where we were when it started.”
“Okay, can you describe the noise for me?”
“No. I said can’t hear it. They said they talked to somebody here about it”
“Do you know who they talked to?”
“No, they didn’t get a name. They said it was the bald one, or maybe the skinny one. It’s hard to tell over the phone.”
“Well, we have a short one, a big one, a skinny one and an old one. Three of them are bald.”
“Don’t you people keep records here? They just called a few days ago.”
“That would be a failure on our part. Actually we fail to log about 50 phone calls a day. How about letting a mechanic test drive the car and see if we can hear a noise?”
“Okay, but what’s this going to cost?”
“No charge for the test drive, and we’ll see where it goes from there.”
The known facts are written up and passed to a mechanic for a test drive.
He immediately comes into the office. “What am I supposed to make of this? It’s about as clear as a medical bill.”
Just then the phone rings. It’s a telemarketer. “Gimme the phone,” says the service advisor. “This one is mine.”