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(mis)communication
Aug. 3rd, 2008 01:25 amI now have a problem, in that when I stop taking the codeine, I start getting dizzily, drowsily dysphasic. I am not going to list today's spoonerisms. There are a lot.
Anyway. Things not to do when you have a headache and mild dysphasia - try to run a bookshop with one phone line and no internet. It basically meant we were trying to run the place from memory, and this works to some extent, but, mostly, I spent the day shouting at BT. Being themselves, and thus very useful, they had sent out an engineer at half eight at night and wondered why no one was there. Cue several conversations trying to explain certain basic concepts to them - "No, this is a business. A bookshop. A shop with books in it. Yeah, we sell them to people..." - we were left at the end of the day with the strange, uneasy feeling that you get when you pick up a phone and don't hear a dialtone. Part of me, somwhere in the hindbrain, wonders if the zombie invasion has already started.
It was an odd day, all told; mostly a day of miscommunications. They delivered a whole batch of mail that wasn't ours - I chased its real owner down a quarter of a mile, waving it like a madwoman - and then round about lunchtime, I heard a jingly-jangly ringtone and waited for Assistant Book Monkey to do something about it. He, meanwhile, waited for me to do something about it. After the penny had dropped very slowly for both of us, I picked up the phone sitting on the desk and said, in my nice, pleasant, lightly Scouse, not-at-all threatening accent, "Hello?"
There was a long pause, and then the woman on the other end whispered, "...who is this?"
Apparently, this was a mother convinced I had kidnapped her only child. Whereas I could've told her that said delightful only child had left her phone behind on our shop's counter. She eventually reappeared for it, and I gave it to her, but not before telling her, "Call your mum!", and wondering when exactly I turned into my own mother.
(Also, in further developments, I took the time to ask Matt today, "How's your harem?"
He said, rather petulantly, "I don't have a harem. I have a girlfriend now."
Assistant Book Monkey, however, was unconvinced. "Don't let Elizabeth in."
"I don't know anyone called Elizabeth," I said, somewhat irritably.
"You know, Elizabeth. She tried to give him her phone number."
I took a deep breath before saying, "You mean, our boss's twelve-year-old daughter tried to..."
They just sort of stared at me. It was a long and precious moment. Chief Book Monkey, who is a very nice man who has at some point in his life swallowed a thesaurus, is in Spain at the moment, and he is indomitable. Last year, he went on holiday and didn't come back even when the hotel he was staying in was bombed by ETA. He's that sort of a person. I just... yeah.)
By mid-afternoon, there was no phone, there was no internet connection, we had run out of pound coins and I'd had to go next door to buy kitchen rolls, one by one, with a twenty-pound note each time, for the change, and the BT engineers weren't coming, and it was too hot, and then a woman came in wanting "a book, it won a prize, it's about a murder", and I was just fed up. So I kicked the computer, tried to ring Crosby, who said "errrrrr", and then I gave up and rang![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shimgray, on the grounds that if anyone knew, he probably would.
...he did. And we had the book. We sold it. Assistant Book Monkey looked at me and said, "What, wait, you rang your boyfriend... I thought - oh, bloody hell, I need a smoke."
"Didn't you give up-"
"Shut up."
By the end of the day, therefore, I was very tired and very very not-compos-mentis and... yeah. I really would like my brain back sometime soon. Tomorrow, I have to get ready for this interview, find something to wear, find out where all my other clothes have got to, refill my prescription(s), find train tickets, addresses, oyster card, etc., send three letters and a parcel, then I go to London, then I go to Edinburgh, thenemily_shore comes to visit, then I move out. (Finally.) In short, I am somewhat harried at the moment. Things to post in the near future - plans, insomnia cures, loneraven and forthwritten's Sooper Secret Project O'DoomTM, 10,000 words of fic. Argh.
Pills! Then bed.
Anyway. Things not to do when you have a headache and mild dysphasia - try to run a bookshop with one phone line and no internet. It basically meant we were trying to run the place from memory, and this works to some extent, but, mostly, I spent the day shouting at BT. Being themselves, and thus very useful, they had sent out an engineer at half eight at night and wondered why no one was there. Cue several conversations trying to explain certain basic concepts to them - "No, this is a business. A bookshop. A shop with books in it. Yeah, we sell them to people..." - we were left at the end of the day with the strange, uneasy feeling that you get when you pick up a phone and don't hear a dialtone. Part of me, somwhere in the hindbrain, wonders if the zombie invasion has already started.
It was an odd day, all told; mostly a day of miscommunications. They delivered a whole batch of mail that wasn't ours - I chased its real owner down a quarter of a mile, waving it like a madwoman - and then round about lunchtime, I heard a jingly-jangly ringtone and waited for Assistant Book Monkey to do something about it. He, meanwhile, waited for me to do something about it. After the penny had dropped very slowly for both of us, I picked up the phone sitting on the desk and said, in my nice, pleasant, lightly Scouse, not-at-all threatening accent, "Hello?"
There was a long pause, and then the woman on the other end whispered, "...who is this?"
Apparently, this was a mother convinced I had kidnapped her only child. Whereas I could've told her that said delightful only child had left her phone behind on our shop's counter. She eventually reappeared for it, and I gave it to her, but not before telling her, "Call your mum!", and wondering when exactly I turned into my own mother.
(Also, in further developments, I took the time to ask Matt today, "How's your harem?"
He said, rather petulantly, "I don't have a harem. I have a girlfriend now."
Assistant Book Monkey, however, was unconvinced. "Don't let Elizabeth in."
"I don't know anyone called Elizabeth," I said, somewhat irritably.
"You know, Elizabeth. She tried to give him her phone number."
I took a deep breath before saying, "You mean, our boss's twelve-year-old daughter tried to..."
They just sort of stared at me. It was a long and precious moment. Chief Book Monkey, who is a very nice man who has at some point in his life swallowed a thesaurus, is in Spain at the moment, and he is indomitable. Last year, he went on holiday and didn't come back even when the hotel he was staying in was bombed by ETA. He's that sort of a person. I just... yeah.)
By mid-afternoon, there was no phone, there was no internet connection, we had run out of pound coins and I'd had to go next door to buy kitchen rolls, one by one, with a twenty-pound note each time, for the change, and the BT engineers weren't coming, and it was too hot, and then a woman came in wanting "a book, it won a prize, it's about a murder", and I was just fed up. So I kicked the computer, tried to ring Crosby, who said "errrrrr", and then I gave up and rang
shimgray, on the grounds that if anyone knew, he probably would....he did. And we had the book. We sold it. Assistant Book Monkey looked at me and said, "What, wait, you rang your boyfriend... I thought - oh, bloody hell, I need a smoke."
"Didn't you give up-"
"Shut up."
By the end of the day, therefore, I was very tired and very very not-compos-mentis and... yeah. I really would like my brain back sometime soon. Tomorrow, I have to get ready for this interview, find something to wear, find out where all my other clothes have got to, refill my prescription(s), find train tickets, addresses, oyster card, etc., send three letters and a parcel, then I go to London, then I go to Edinburgh, then
emily_shore comes to visit, then I move out. (Finally.) In short, I am somewhat harried at the moment. Things to post in the near future - plans, insomnia cures, loneraven and forthwritten's Sooper Secret Project O'DoomTM, 10,000 words of fic. Argh. Pills! Then bed.
