MY CALL IS IMPORTANT

Early in a budding romance, I called my intended to offer reassurance and encouragement at just the right moment. Since every moment in the budding stage is the right moment, I could hardly go wrong and I didn’t. It was nervy of me though. Her boyfriend, slow to exit, might have answered and that would be awkward. He did, as it happened, and it was, but he was quite gracious. He called her to the phone and removed himself. “I hope you don’t mind my calling you there,” I said. “No,” she replied, “your call is very important to me.” It was such a moving acknowledgment; I remember it clearly and savor it although, amidst the onslaught of organizations who cavalierly offer the same assurance it’s becoming more and more difficult to remember how precious those words once sounded.

Today the irs told me the same thing fifty-three times in ninety-two minutes. Fifty-three times I was also reminded that all their agents were busy assisting other taxpayers and that my conversation, in the unlikely event one ever took place, might be recorded to ensure quality control and for training purposes. By the time an hour had elapsed I was very eager indeed to provide them with a recording by which they might assess quality control and with which they might advance training. I was further admonished, fifty-three times, to remember that my call would be answered in the order in which it was received, and that I was not to hang up because such a rash action would only result in my being bounced back to the end of the line where my mood was not likely to improve. And fifty-three times too I heard the first eighty-one seconds of Pachelbel’s Canon played on a moog synthesizer. During minutes eighty-one through eighty-eight I visited the bathroom and, taking the cordless phone with me, hoped against hope that my chance would come during that appropriate interlude, when opportunities to expand on my frustration were so bountiful. It didn’t but during the ninety-third minute a voice interrupted the fifty-fourth rendition of Pachelbel’s Canon and said “You have reached the internal revenue service conflict resolution center. For English press 1.”
* the failure to capitalize here and there is intentional.