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I sit on my couch, Friday afternoon, on hold with the Department of Water and Power. I’ve already been holding on the phone for ten minutes. Every thirty seconds, the same message repeats — they are “very busy” and a “customer service representative” will “be right with me” and that they “thank me” for “being so patient.”

I am patient, but I’m tired of waiting. My foot taps, impatiently. I have to leave… five minutes ago. I have an appointment downtown. I just want to talk to customer service about my bill. I want to get this payment issue over with before the weekend is here.

I wait ten more minutes. The repeating message is driving me crazy. “Very busy…thank you… patient..”

That’s enough. I need to go. I can’t sit here all day on hold waiting for someone to answer the phone.

I hang up, head out the front door, and enter my car, still holding onto the cell phone that I used to call up the Department of Water and Power.

Then I realize — couldn’t have I left twenty minutes ago WITH the phone in hand? Or any time after that?  Why did I hang up before I left the house?  And why was I sitting there on the couch connected by an invisible phone cord?

That’s something my father would have done. How Old School is that?

A Year Ago on Citizen of the Month: Jane Austen and the Pussycats