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I'm Sorry, He Can't Come to the Phone Right Now

Part 2

After spending at least 15 minutes laughing about my exchange with the idiot woman looking for Wal-Mart, I realized that she was probably talking to the manager at this very moment, and was probably out for blood. I started thinking about the poor telephone operator who was going to be chewed out, or possibly even fired because of my misdeeds. I felt guilty, so I decided to call the manager and confess.

A perky young lady answered Wal-Mart's main number, "Thank you for calling your friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart, how may I help you?"

I mumbled, "Uh, can I speak to a managerial type, please?" I was feeling a little guilty. After being on hold for several minutes, the manager finally took my call.

"Hi, this is manager xxxx xxxxx, how may I help you?"

I decided to try and take the friendly approach, "Well, I'm sure you can help me. How are you doing today?"

"I'm fine, thanks."

"Good, I'm glad. However, your good day is probably being wrecked by my bad behavior, so I thought I'd give you a call. I have a feeling that one of your employees is about to get in trouble for my actions, and I wanted to give you a call and let you know that your employee didn't do anything wrong."

At this point, the manager was curious. "Oh?"

"Well," I explained, "it seems I'm a victim of the telephone company. Wal-Mart's main number is one digit off of my home telephone numbers, and I get a lot of wrong numbers for your store. At first, it was just annoying, but now I've started to fight back and play tricks people who call me. Even though I answer the phone by saying 'Thank you for not calling your unfriendly neighborhood Wal-Mart, how may I not help you?' people don't pay attention and they assume they've reached your store."

I continued on, "This afternoon, a woman called my house four times to ask for the manager. After several calls, I told her you were dead. She got really angry, and I'm concerned that whoever answers the phone at your store is going to get in trouble."

At this point, the manager laughed, "Oh, yes, we've gotten some complaints about that recently. In fact, the woman you were talking to earlier was my wife!"

The manager went on to apologize for all the wrong numbers I'd been getting, and promised not to discipline his employee. I thanked him, and was at somewhat of a loss for words. It made me wonder why his own wife couldn't manage to correctly dial his phone number.

Then I remembered...