Sunday 23 October 2011

Thank you for calling A T & T


"Thank you for calling A T & T - Oh! Hi Tom. Did you want to call H.I. in England again? No problem. I'm connecting you now. Oh and by the way, you know she has left a message today on your hotel phone? You have a nice evening, and we'll speak again tomorrow".

I check out of the Days Inn on Sand Lake Road, Orlando, and the man behind the desk says that my bill has been payed by my employers, but I say that I have a telephone bill to pay.

"Oh I'm sure your employers will be happy to settle that Sir."

I say that I am sure they will not, so he says he will print off a bill for me, then fumbles under the desk with some buttons and cables, then the machine above clicks into life and starts producing a ribbon of paper that folds like pastry over his ledger.

After about one minute of printing, he calls his colleagues over to show them the rattling and stuttering machine, and he starts to worry about it running out of paper. The two other women stare in disbelief and the yardage which is issuing from the contraption, and when it eventually stops, they tell me that this is the highest bill ever accrued on their watches at Sand Lake.

It comes to not far off $1000, and when I pay it, I have used up about 40% of my earnings from the 3 weeks work I have done in Orlando.

I take the bill to my billionaire employers to show them I paid it, and as I let one end of it go and watch it unwrap and cascade down the steps of their newly built staircase at their newly built mansion, the man says, "My God. You must really be in love with that woman".

8 comments:

  1. You must be Tom. That was really nice.

    Still, you should have got the greedy billionaire bastards to pay the telephone bill.

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  2. Our phone bill in England was about £500 too - a grand total indeed.

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  3. Lovely -(but never nice to be called "that woman")!

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  4. He wasn't a very nice man, Ticking.

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  5. My goodness me - how romantic - wish I had found a lover like that in my long life!!

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  6. Absence makes the bill grow longer!

    I once phoned Lady M from a hotel in France, and found myself speaking to someone in a war-zone (Sarajevo maybe). I could hear gun fire in the background etc, and all I could think to say was 'keep your head down'. For some even more bizarre reason, the call wasn't on my bill!

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  7. A duck goes for his honeymoon in a Florida hotel, then goes down to reception for a condom. The concierge says, "Shall I put it on your bill?"

    Quack quack quack quack....

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