Things Aren't Always The Way They Seem

The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect my stupidity.

I have three hands-free headsets on my desk.

One for my cell phone.

One for my computer and Skype and making videos.

One for my landline, business phone.

So today, I’m sitting at my desk, minding my own business, jamming to some GREAT music, and working.

My business phone starts ringing and I look at the caller ID. It says Otis Ortiz. I don’t personally know an Otis Ortiz, and I wasn’t expecting anyone named Otis Ortiz to call and I was very busy, working.

By the time I decided to answer it, the call had already gone to voicemail. Oh darn! I missed the call from someone I don’t know. I’ll have to listen to the message.

I paused the music I was listening to, waiting for a message. Huh, no message. I went back to work.

In a few minutes the phone starts ringing again and you guessed it, Otis Ortiz is calling. I pick up the handset and answer in my professional business voice, “This is Bille.”

I heard a woman’s voice say, “Hello.” Only it was more like, “Hello?”

I deepened my voice and added the Zig Ziglar effect, “HELLO.”

Again I heard a woman’s voice say, “Hello.” Only this time it was really more like, “HELLO???”

This time I decided she was hearing impaired and I yelled, “HELLO!!!!!”

She came back with a yell of her own, “HELLO!!!!!”

I loosened my tie, well I would have if I was wearing one, and I really screamed, “HELLLLLOOOOO!!!!!!!!”

The phone went dead.

I calmly placed the handset back on the phone and picked up my glass of chamomile tea. Just as I placed the glass to my mouth, the phone started ringing. It was Otis Ortiz!

I picked up the handset and calmly and professionally swallowed, and said, “Hello.”

A woman’s voice, “Hello?”

Me, “HELLO!”

Woman using Otis Ortiz’s phone, “HELLO!?”

Me, “HELLO!!!”

Imposter on Otis Ortiz’s phone, “HELLO!!!???”

Me, quickly ingesting my blood pressure medicine, “HELLLLOOO!!!”

Person who I’m not sure is a woman but I am sure stole Otis Ortiz’s phone just to torment me and keep me from work, “HELLLLOOO!!!”

Before I can take in enough breath to give her the “Hello” she really deserves, she hangs up.

This exact same scenario plays itself out two more times. Now, after the fifth call from the mocking, banshee from hell, George Costanza from “Seinfeld” starts to rise up inside of me. I plan what I’m going to say to whomever it is manipulating Otis Ortiz’s phone in such an evil manner. It went something like this…

“Where the heck do you get the nerve? You invite me up for coffee and then you don't call me back for four days? I don't like coffee, I don't have to come up. I'd like to get one more shot at the coffee just so I could spit it in your face.”

…except I would have said phone call instead of coffee…and stuff like that.

So I’m waiting, with my hand over the phone, putting the right words together in my mind, and the phone rings. As I jerk the receiver to my ear, ready to erupt like Mount Vesuvius, I see something fall off of my desk. I stand up to see what fell, and as I look over the edge of my desk, I see the hands-free headset hanging from the cord, plugged into the phone. This muted the microphone on the handset I had been picking up, allowing me to hear her but she couldn’t hear me.

I put on the headset, said “Hello” and had a great conversation with a dear friend who was using her son-in-law’s phone. Her son-in-law’s name is Otis Ortiz. He’s a great guy, letting his mother-in-law use his phone like that.

You know, things aren’t always the way they seem. It wasn’t a rude person calling me to torment me. It was a dear friend calling someone too stupid to work the phone correctly.

Barbara Johnson said, “Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.”

A lot of times we feel like “stripping our gears” when we really don’t have all the information we need to make an informed decision. Not everything is as it seems. It’s not as bad as we imagine. It’s not the end of the world. We will be happy again. We will survive. The Sun will rise again tomorrow. Just because the clouds hide it from view doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Just have faith…things aren’t always the way they seem.

Keep Believing…