I’m in awe of this woman. I don’t know who she is, but I would not be so gracious under similar circumstances.
Because what happened must happen to her, and her family, almost daily. And only a bunch of saints could be this cheerful about the mistake I made.
An honest mistake, but a stupid one.
~ • ~
You see, on Sunday morning around 7:00 a.m. I decided to call the automated Kroger pharmacy line to refill my prescription. I was out of Restasis, my favorite eye drops ever.
Being half awake + a bit blurry-eyed [see previous sentence] I goofed while dialing the phone for the pharmacy. Instead of getting the “Hello. Thank you for calling your Kroger pharmacy.” message, I got a real person whose home I’d just called.
The woman who answered said your basic “Hello!” then heard me babble: “Oh no. I dialed wrong. Oh dear. Sorry to have bothered you this early. On Sunday. Oh my.”
And without missing a beat this polite woman said: “Trying to reach Kroger pharmacy?”
~ • ~
I answered, in a most pathetic voice: “Yes.”
All I heard on the other end of the line was her laugh and then she said: “Our phone number is close to theirs. You just misdialed. Try again. It happens here all the time.”
Grateful to be talking with someone who was not yelling at me for waking him or her up early on a weekend morning, I said: “Thank you. Sorry to have bothered you.”
Then with another laugh I heard her say: “No problem. Bye, bye!”
And so it came to be that on Sunday morning I spoke with a saint. I now have proof that they walk and talk among us.
Hallelujah & Amen.
THE SPECTACLED BEAN 
Indeed a saint. I know how I would respond time after time.
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Yes, Z-D, I know how you’d respond, too. Not sure that I wouldn’t be grumpy like you.
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Nobody is grumpy lilke me.
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So true. When you’re not Zen, you nail Grumpy. Like the character in Snow White. 🙂
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She is a saint for sure. Had it been my phone ringing that early on a Sunday, I would’ve checked caller ID to make sure it wasn’t anyone I knew with something urgent, and upon discovering it wasn’t, I would’ve rolled over and gone back to sleep. 😉
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Carrie, considering the existence of caller ID, I had to wonder why this woman answered her phone. But maybe it’s a fun game to her to listen to what confused people, such as myself, say when they realize they have the wrong number. Or she’s a saint!
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For all you know, she has a blog of her own for this very purpose. 😉
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Carrie, wouldn’t that be wonderful? Endless laughs, at the expense of others, on that blog.
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The phone number we had growing up was one digit off of a local swim club… and it was the last digit of the prefix, so it was a very commonly made mistake. About half the numbers in my city started with 876 or 877. We had the 877 to their 876 with the exact same last four digits. We always knew when Summer had started when we started getting calls for the swim club (Most of which would not happen these days in the era of the ubiquitous smartphone)…
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evilsquirrel13, oh man, that’d drive me crazy. All summer long! You and your family were saintly evilsquirrels to put up with that. But makes for a good story…
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My in-laws’ phone number was xxx-6643, and there was a carryout place in the neighborhood whose number was xxx-0043. They would get calls all the time from people who would mistake the O for the zero and think they were calling the restaurant. One night my father-in-law took the guy’s order. For some reason, people stopped making that mistake after that. Maybe it was just the one guy…
I worked with a hospital years ago, and dialed what I thought was the hospital’s number to talk to one of my clients. Instead, I got a rather profanely-worded message from some guy’s answering machine letting me know that I hadn’t called the f***ing hospital. Guess I wasn’t the only one that made that mistake…
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John, I love the idea of taking the order… and then letting things settle out! What a good idea your FIL had.
As for the rude answering machine message, I can understand how a person could get to that point. But I’d create a message that’s humorous, memorable– and gets the point across gently.
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I’m surprised she answered. We rarely answer our landline, letting it go to voice message. I would also have included in my answering message that if you are calling the pharmacy, you done screwed up.
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Kate, I don’t know why she answered. But this woman, cheerful soul that she is, answered her phone. Like you, I’d have a message on the answering machine that explained it all, so that I wouldn’t have to answer the phone unless I knew who it was.
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Haha. She’s nicer than I would’ve been. My phone number is one digit off from a big medical practice in my hometown. People call ALL THE TIME to schedule their appointments. I usually tell them the right number, unless they argue with me. “I’m not the doctor’s office.” “YES YOU ARE! I NEED TO BRING MY STOOL SAMPLE!!” “Okay. Well. You need to gather five more before you can come in.”
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Andra, what a bother it must be to have your phone number. However, I love your approach to handling the argumentative callers. Brilliant! Well done, my dear.
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Sweet story. 🙂
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la p, thank you. Still sorry that I bothered that woman, but talking with a saint isn’t all bad!
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Uh, oh. Seems I’m having the same problem at your spot that you have been having at mine: my comments are disappearing! I’ve tried to comment twice, and they’ve somehow not shown up after publishing. I’ll try a third time.
Your Kroger Pharmacy Saint is coping with grace.
My brother constantly gets calls for a cell phone retail outlet. If he’s in the mood, he deals with them as if he is a service rep for that retailer. He suggests they take out their phone battery, reboot the phone, etc. when they’re having problems. Sometimes he suggests really outlandish things, but often he simply says, “Come on in and we’ll replace your phone.” I’m sure it has led to some terrible moments at that store.
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nance, thank you for being persistent with your comment. The first 2 went to spam while this one waited around for me to moderate it. When this happens, there is a spammy comment written in Chinese or Korean or Japanese right before the real commenter tries to comment. Obviously, there’s a connection, just don’t know what it is.
Anyhoo…
I love how your brother handles his misdial problem phone calls. What a hoot! It’d be fun to go to the cell phone store and see if he could overhear any of the conversations that he instigated with his service rep “help.” *bwha ha ha*
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My number was one off Pizza Hut so I got scores of drunk callers on Friday and Saturday nights. I was not a saint like your nice lady. I tried to be but I generally ended up hanging up and letting the machine answer. At least I never actually took orders like I often threatened to.
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Zazzy, all those late night weekend phone calls would drive me bonkers. I think that I’d take the orders every once in a while, just to keep Pizza Hut [which I don’t like] guessing. Did you get rid of that phone number or did you move? [Or better yet, did Pizza Hut go out of business?]
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There are sometimes medical places that call my number for someone else and leave a message. I always call them back to let them know (nicely) that it was a wrong number and that their person did not get his/her message. Now I know I am a true “saint.” 😉
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ST. MARGARET, I’ve had those sorts of messages here, too. I called back because I thought that the doc’s office needed to know that there was a phone number prob with their patient. But I never thought of myself as a saint.
However, now that I do know that I’m a saint I think that I’ll add that to my resume. Couldn’t hurt, right?
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