Story 111: Away Message

            “Hello, this is Jill --- of --- ----.  I will be out of the office on Monday, December 7, due to the holiday; for immediate assistance, please call – ”

            “Jill, could you send me the – oh, you’re on the phone?”

            “Yes.”

            “OK, when you’re done, could you send me the spreadsheet from last month?  I lost it again.”

            “Sure.”

            “Thanks!  You’re the best!”

            “Hi, this is Jill --- of --- -----.  I will be – ”

            “I’m on the other line – could you get that?”

            “Sure…. Hello, this is Jill, how may I help you?...  No, you dialed the wrong number, let me transfer you…. Yes, happens all the time.  Hold on, please…. It was the wrong number!”

            “Heh, figures.”

            “Hi, this is Jill --- of --- -----.  I will be out of the office on Monday, December… 6?  Shoot, it’s the 7^th….  Hello, this is – ”

            “Did you send me the spreadsheet yet?”

            “Yes!”

            “I don’t see it!”

            “Did it go to Spam?”

            “No, nothing’s there.  Could you send it again?”

            “It’s gotta be there; I sent it five minutes ago!”

            “Well I don’t see – oh there it is, never mind.”

            “<Grinding teeth> Hi, this is Jill.  I’ll be out – ”

            “I’m leaving, good night!”

            “Good night!”

            “Oh yeah, you’re gonna be out on Monday – have a Happy Hanukkah!”

            “Thank you!”

            “You should’ve taken the whole week off.  Why only the one day?”

            “I have some family over, but I really don’t have to miss the whole week of work.”

            “I would’ve, heh heh heh.  Well, have fun with the relatives, and see you on Tuesday!”

            “Thanks!.... Hi, this is Jill, I’ll be out of the office until December 8, please call extension 123 for immediate assistance, thank you, bye!...  Finally done, but who says ‘bye’ at the end of an away message?”

            “I was thinking: you mind taking off Tuesday instead?  I forgot I need to be off-site on Monday and someone has to be here.”

            “Tuesday’s fine.”

           “Great!  Now you don’t have to worry about recording your away message until after the weekend!”

            “Yes.  Great.”

Story 110: You’ve Been Stone Souped

            He saw his best friend sitting outside the department store’s changing room.

           “What’s this?  I thought you said you’d never go clothes shopping with your wife again after the last four-hour extravaganza.”

            “I know.  She asked me to come with her to pick out a new CD player, then she saw the washer-dryer section and said we need a new one `cause ours is ready to explode.  After spending $800, we were passing by the clothes section and she was sucked into the vortex, never to be seen again.  And so I wait.”

            “Oh man, you were totally Stone Souped!”

            “I was what?”

            “You know that story, ‘Stone Soup’?  A man begs food from a woman who says she doesn’t have any when she really does and she’s just being selfish, so he says all he wants is Stone Soup and he’ll show her how to make it.  She falls for it and lets him come in, so he gives her a random stone and tells her to put it in a pot of water over a fire, and as it’s boiling, he tastes the water and is all, ‘Yummy, but it needs some salt,’ and ‘Delicious, but it needs some rosemary,’ and ‘Almost done, but it needs some carrots, celery, potatoes, and a whole flipping chicken!’  Or something like that.  Anyway, it’s so gradual and small at first that the mark, I mean the old lady, doesn’t realize he’s conned her into giving him actual food until soup’s done!  It was delicious.”

            “Wait, you’re saying that I’m the selfish old lady, and my wife’s the beggar man, only instead of cooking, I’ve been tricked into shopping?!”

            “Yep.  It’s pretty much a standard bait-and-switch.”

            “I don’t believe it!  I actually fell for the old ‘just picking up one thing’ gag!  And on Black Friday, no less!  I must be mad!”

            “Not mad, just Stone Souped.”

            “Boy, is she going to get an earful of the silent treatment when we’re standing on the massive lines and enduring the hours of traffic on the ride home!  She hates the silent treatment!”

            “That’s the spirit – you show her with your muteness!”

            “I will!  When she finally gets out of there…  Wait a minute.  What are you doing here at the mall?”

            “I never speak from inexperience, my friend.”

Story 109: Tethered to the TV

           “We haven’t seen each other in so long!  I’ve gotta run now, but would you like to get together for dinner this week?”

            “I’ve love to!  I’d like to have someone cook for me for a change.”

            “Great!  How’s Tuesday at 6:30?”

            “Umm… not so good.  I’d have to leave before 8, and we’d still be on the entrée.”

            “Oh sure – the kids?”

          “Nah: Crime Procedural: Major City.  New season starts that night, and last episode was a cliffhanger.  Gotta see if Detective Sidekick made it through the accident with all her limbs intact.  We know she survived because she’s still in the cast list, but how altered will she be?”

            “Ohh-Kaaay, how about Wednesday?”

            “Hm, normally I would say yes, but there’s a special episode of Space Opera Grit on that night.  I normally don’t watch those kind of things, but they’re bringing back Captain Cowman as a special guest star, and I’ve missed him since they pinned him off at the end of Season 3.  Show went downhill after that.  Supposedly, the actor had pitched a fit one day and threw a bottle of water at one of the 17 producers so they all fired him, but nobody buys that, else why would they invite him back now?  We all think he wanted more money so they figured it was cheaper just to give him no money.  Either story’s a shame, `cause he’s too hot to be such a whiny little bi-”

            “All right, how about Thursday?”

          “Yeah, no can do: murder mystery night.  Back-to-back episodes of Olde English Private Investigator and Modern English Private Investigator.  I love that they have the same cast in both, and they only shoot four episodes a year each.  With the salary the leads get, that’d be a sweet job, not having to work 11 months out of the year, right?  The mysteries tend to blur together, but what do you expect after being on the air for 42 seasons?”

            “Friday?”

           “Oh, Friday: sitcom mayhem.  Half-hour nuggets of Single D-Bags, Psychopathic Family of 10, Married D-Bags, and Why Should I Date Anybody?  Comedic gold, although PFO10 is getting a little long in the tooth and should’ve updated its name to PFO35 years ago.  Gueststaritis affects even the best of them, I guess.”

            “How about the weekend?”

          “Days I’m fine, but Saturday night’s Sword Slash and Retroville, and Sunday’s Political Parody Pundits, Antihero vs. Borderline Villain, and Despair, USA.  It’s TV’s new golden age.”

            “Yes, you seem a bit held captive by it.  Why not record them or access them later?”

            “I can’t miss them when they first air – I’ll fall behind and then forget to watch them by the time the next episode’s on!  I am free on Mondays, though – they’re my day of rest because nothing I like is on.  Want to do dinner then?”

            “Uh, can’t, actually.”

            “Kids?”

            “…Comic Book Adaptation, Over-Capacity Prisons, and Auditions: Opera.”

            “Ooh, I heard Comic Book Adaptation was good; I just couldn’t bring myself to commit to another cinematic universe when it premiered.”

            “You know, it’s only so-so.  It really should’ve just been a miniseries, but they’re doing the whole 22 and already got renewed for another 10 seasons.”

            “Bummer.  You’re stuck now.”

            “Yeah.  So, maybe we can get together by the beginning of June?”

            “Definitely!  I’ve got a 12-day break before Summer Vacations: Oceania begins airing seven days a week!”