Not that we're 411

I really don’t mind looking up numbers for people over the phone. It happens at least once a day. It’s usually an older person who calls, and people are typically polite about it. It’s a semi-reference question, so it‘s good for the stats. I do mind, though, when I talk to people like the woman who called earlier.

She wanted the number of a computer store in our town. Only she had the business name wrong. And the wrong town. That all took a while, but I got it sorted out and started to give her the number. She stopped me.

“Can’t you just connect me?”

“Our phones don’t do that.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Nope.” I explained that we were not really directory assistance, so we didn’t have the same fancy gear.

Deep sigh, like I’d told her that we had no electricity for her dialysis machine, which she had dragged to the library by herself at night through the snow, a pack of hungry, possibly rabid wolves snapping at her heals the whole time.

“Hang on,” she carped, as though she was reluctantly doing me a favor. The phone was deposited on something hard while she went off, presumably, to find something to write with. Or maybe I was just being punished.