The Waiting Game

Ahhh waiting.  You know, we spend a lot of our lives waiting.  Waiting for the light to change, waiting in the doctor's office, waiting for it to be time to get off of work, waiting to pay for your gas, etc. My favorite thing to wait for is phone calls (there may have been a little bit of sarcasm in that last one...)

Actually, I hate waiting on phone calls.  Return phone calls rarely ever happen at a convenient time.  Back before everyone and their mother had cell phones you could call to make a doctor's appointment or something, get the machine, and sit around the house for hours waiting on them to call you back.  Eventually you'd give up and leave the house to go get milk (or whatever it was you had to do as well that day), come home and oh look!  There's a message on the answering machine. Annndddd commence playing phone tag again.  *sigh*

Granted it's a little harder to miss an important call today than it was years ago.  Practically everyone has a cell phone now, and many use their cell phones as their primary phone (myself included).  Today though I still found myself waiting around for a phone call for most of the day (my phone typically does not accompany me into the restroom, and I don't like talking on my phone while driving especially if I'm going to need to write something down)... only there was a minor twist in the story.  While I was not plagued with the inconvenient return phone call today, it doesn't ring to be any less true.  It almost never fails! 

I swear there is a person (or persons) who's sole purpose in life is to wait until it's not convenient, and take that as the signal to return your phone call.  They probably have some sort of super high-tech command center too.  Perhaps it looks something like this:

"Oh it looks like Mary's leaving a dump!" (Yes I said leaving... what sort of sick freak takes one with them anyway? I never understood the term "taking a dump")
"Oh hey Tom just got in the shower!"
*initiate dialing sequence!!!*
*phone starts ringing*

Oh but these people are evil!! They don't stop at the inconvenient return phone call.  Oh no, that wouldn't be nearly enough torture.  Sometimes they'll wait until you're in the restroom or getting in the shower, make your phone ring so you run blazing through the house totally naked or with your pants down...

"Hello!  I am Sue with the Fraternal Order of Police! I was wondering if you had a moment to consider making a donation!"

...

So there I was... sitting... waiting...

I may have forgotten the month was almost over and my car needed inspected.  Well, I hadn't forgotten the whole month, but there was a slight miscommunication.  You see, I'm supposed to take my car to get inspected at my brother-in-law's (we shall call him Juan Pablo) mechanic and get them to do an estimate on fixing my sunroof (it's going to be my Christmas present. No more leaking car yay!)  A little earlier this month my sister (we shall call her Angela, because I do not know if she'd kill me for using her real name or not) texts me:

Angela: Hey when does your inspection run out?
Me: End of this month
Angela: Ok we need to set it up then

I interpreted this as, they were going to set up the appointment with their mechanic and let me know when to be there.  So this past Thursday I realized the month is almost over and I need to get the inspection done (whoops!) so I text to ask if I should just set up the inspection with the other dude or what.

Angela: We were waiting on you to tell us you're ready.
Me: I've been ready I was waiting on you guys!

(See!  More waiting!!!)

Angela:  Let me get the number from Juan Pablo.
Angela: Number is 555-555-9879

I forget Friday to call, so I called today and got a voicemail. 

"Hello! You have reached 555-555-9879. Please leave your name, number and a detailed message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible!"

"Hello!  My name is Nikki and I was told to call and tell you I was Juan Pablo's sister-in-law. I was told he spoke to you about inspecting my car and giving an estimate on what it would cost to fix my sunroof?  If you could call me back at your earliest convenience it would be greatly appreciated! My number is 555-555-4481"

Now that's an odd voicemail for a mechanic I think... but I've contacted smaller businesses who have had messages like that or forgot to set up their new voicemail or something. So I wait.  And wait... and wait... and text Angela.

Me: This waiting sucks! I've been waiting for the mechanic to call me back all day! I had to leave a voicemail. I need to get in the shower and go to the pharmacy but I KNOW the second I go to do either I'll get the phone call.
Angela: A voicemail? We've never had to leave a voicemail. You sure you dialed the right number?
Me: Uhh yeah...  555-555-9879 right? That's the number you gave me.
Angela: Ummm... oops. The number might actually be 9878, not the number I gave you LOL! Don't blame me, blame Juan Pablo!

/facepalm (in their defense though, if you googled the mechanic's shop one of the entries does say 9879, so it's not totally their fault lol.)

Well that at least explained why they weren't calling me back!! So I basically spent all day waiting to get in the shower and go to the pharmacy until the mechanic called me back so I could get my car inspected before the end of the month... yet I hadn't even called the right number!

Oh, and to the poor dude who I called and left a voicemail with, sorry!!! Although I'm sure since it is listed wrong on one of the Google link thingys he's probably used to it.