Telephone Games

[lillibet]

I've always been very comfortable on the telephone. I love to talk, it's a
simple technology, there are ways to make it affordable. I talk to my best
friend and my sister almost every day and to other people fairly regularly.

My husband finds this astonishing. He hates the phone. Getting him to pick
up the phone, even for calls he wants to make, is torturous.

Today I was calling around Paris, making reservations for a couple of meals
we plan to enjoy while we're there in a couple of weeks. It took me all
morning to work up the nerve to call. There was one round of having a wrong
number, calling directory assistance to get the right one, getting an
operator, being transferred to the reservations desk, explaining what I
wanted and being told they are full on the date in question. And then there
were two successful reservations made, one in English and the other actually
using my passable, but nerve-wracking French. The one in English was the
worst, sarcasm dripping off the tongue of the maitre d' as he condescended
to speak my native language. I mean, I fully acknowledge that it would be
better if I were more comfortable speaking French, but I do have good
language skills and we could do this in his language if he'd rather. Then I
remembered that it's not me, it's him, he's French. After going through
this process with several other countries recently, I have to say that the
French reputation for snootiness is not without foundation.

Anyway, I was telling Jason about this, getting pats on the head for
weathering the challenge and getting us reservations (at a couple of places
that sound *very* nice) and he commented that now I know what he goes
through every time he picks up the phone. How dreadful!