I called my mortgage lender for the sixth time this morning. They have one of those really pleasant and efficient front-end menu systems where you enter everything but a DNA sample (yet) and then perhaps somewhere around the twentieth or thirtieth minute of being on the phone, something approaching a human comes on the line and asks you to tell them all the information you entered.
Around about the forty-third minute we finally got to the question "how can I be of service today," which is both kind and laughable as this is a bank and the only service banks provide, male prostitutes have been providing for years, and banks don't even offer lubricant.
"Well, I gotta tell you I'm about exhausted," I said.
"How can I be of service to you?" the almost human voice on the other end of the phone intoned.
"Well, we had our mortgage payment set up at a bank..."
"An automatic bank draft?"
"Yeah, whatever."
"Paperless is just magical, isn't it?"
"Well, except when you have to wipe, which I feel like anytime I have to try and talk with you."
"How can I be of service to you?"
This was sort of a circular conversation and although I wanted to say "is there any chance you could fire bomb yourself?" with some admitted pride, however, I restrained myself.
"Look," I began, "this is the sixth time I've called [name of major bank] about our mortgage. I had this set up on an automatic bank draft and when I left this bank I called [call 1] and asked if I needed to do anything to get a paper invoice, and the almost human voice on the other end of the line told me I didn't."
"Oh, well, let's see how I can help you today."
"No, that's not the whole story. I didn't see an invoice from [name of major bank] and so I called again [call 2] and waited on the phone for fifty-two minutes and nothing sounding like a human came on, so I decided to call back another time. But then I, like many Americans, got busy at work and I wasn't able to call back for about a week. When I finally did [call 3] I got something sounding like a human who assured me they'd have an invoice in the mail."
"How can I be of service to you?"
"Okay, you can stop saying that and listen," I said as the thought of the fire bomb thing flirted in my head. "I didn't see anything again in the mail, so I called again [call 4] got a human sounding thing and it told me that '[name of major bank] was sending out those invoices today.'" "Wow," I thought, "imagine how lucky I was that on the very day I had called and waded through this menu phone systems for thirty-three minutes, on that very day, you all were sending out invoices." But instead I thanked the somewhat human sounding voice for its help.
