A Cold Call

"Hello." A pause, long enough to make me wonder, and to say "hello" again.

Finally, "Hello. May I speak to the person responsible for paying the gas and electricity bills please." Another pause.

"Who's calling?"

"Sorry?"

"Who's this on the phone?"

"Npower."

"Not interested thanks."

"..Mrs Bloggs. You're Mrs Bloggs?"

"Do I sound like Mrs Bloggs?"

"Well, you just said...."

I moved the phone away from my ear and pressed the disconnect button. Obviously he had a job to do, and they must train people to keep talking and to speak to the bill payer, but this is an unrequested call and who does he think he is phoning me up being high and mighty. How come he's such an expert in who pays the bills?

Inexplicably I am also nervous that he's going to phone back any minute and start berating me for hanging up. But phone calls like that are not like normal phone calls; despite everything we have been told we do not have to be polite, or to actually stay on the phone; if you met this chap on the street he would probably be a normal person, even someone you might like, but I suppose in normal life he would not bump into people in the street and ask to speak to the billpayer.

In my imagination I put on a high-pitched voice and say, "Yes, this is Mrs Bloggs."

"Oh, you have a strange voice."

"What do you want young man, I don't have all day."

Or, I would say, "I'll go get her for you," disappear to the bottom of the stairs shout her name, answer myself in a high-pitched voice, then pick up the phone and say, "Mrs Bloggs here" in a strained falsetto that sounds nothing like a woman's voice, but the caller has little other alternative to accept as the real thing.