CONFUUZED MUCH??

I had this odd phone conversation yesterday with an older and obviously confused woman who thought she was calling 'Home Depot' (figured out later she meant Office Depot but the fact that she used the wrong store name only strengthens my argument). This is the nice thing about blogging. When odd things happen, I now have a forum to vent about them. Okay, so the phone call went something like this:

ME: Hello?

HER: Is this Home Depot?

ME: No, you must have dialed the wrong number.

HER: She repeats my phone number and asks again if this is the HOME DEPOT? Then goes on about whether or not I carry printer ink.

ME: Maam, you've dialed the wrong number, you're reaching a home residence. As soon as the word 'Home' left my lips I realized she stopped listening after that and assumed she had, in fact, reached the 'HOME DEPOT' (aka known as OFFICE DEPOT) who ironically are located right next to each other on the same street in our town so when she insisted on repeating the address and town location my explanation to her fell on deaf ears...............literally perhaps.

HER: I'm looking at the yellow pages and it says the number is (she repeats my number again). By now, I'm online looking up the number for Home Depot for her but it's no where close to my number so I'm thinking maybe she's got an ancient book of yellow pages that really DOES have my number listed in it so I don't offer her Robin's Directory Assistance.

ME: Maam I would re-check that number again because you are calling a HOME residence.

HER: What did you say to me? (seriously, in a tone that would have implied I had said something very rude and inappropriate). I repeated it again and this time hung up on her to fend for her (bewildered) self.

......................about 2 minutes later my phone rings again and my caller ID reveals that Emily is calling back. I feel like I know her well enough by now to be on a first name basis. Besides, I forgot to mention before that she introduced herself by name (first and last) along with her request for printer ink. As though that would somehow miraculously transform my kitchen into a brick and mortar mecca for office supplies and put her frantic search to an end. It didn't....

The beginning of this conversation was almost verbatim to the one above so I won't bother retyping it here. Just think Shampoo, condition, rinse and repeat...

...and finally

ME: Ma'am you are reaching a house -- a HOME RESIDENCE, not a store.

HER: (Rambling) A house? What? A house? You're NOT Home Depot? Oh dear...... maybe I'd better look at those yellow pages again. I'm sure I wrote it down right. Hold on for a minute while I look again {me thinking: oh sure because THAT will change the fact that you HAVE THE WRONG NUMBER} ...........rifling through pages and then I hear - Oh, never mind, click -

Only after this exchange did I think of the Office Depot confusion and looked them up this morning to discover that their phone number is only one digit off of ours. Surprised this hasn't happened before. I'm almost tempted to call her back today and see if she found what she was looking for. I hope she has a daughter to help her out with this stuff - this SO could have been my own confused mom making the call.