RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32563, 24 March 1971, Page 27

RANDOM REMINDER

MAGIC CARPETS

Our telephone service has improved greatly since the days when all listeners were served by party lines and manual exchanges, but all this efficiency required by a jet-age service has been achieved without loss of that personal touch which is the hall-mark of a good communications service. The P. to P. call deserves much of the credit for this, as the following tale exemplifies. He has an office in the town, but they live in the country, and he often brings the groceries home with him on his way from work. Occasionally the shopping list he takes to work is incomplete in which case his wife phones him to make good the deficiency before he leaves to come home. He also travels widely in his work and some of his

trips are vety much off-the-cuff affairs. Because of this, and because ringing him involves a small toll charge, she is in the habit of making her calls to him P. to P. Her call on this occasion was to ask him to be sure to include the cat meat on the list- After a short delay she was connected, and after relating some of the exciting events of her domestic morning, she remembered to remind him about the cat food. He hummed and hawed somewhat about this, and told her he would not be able to bring fresh meat as he would be returning late, and when pressed further, pleaded the quarantine regulations regarding the importation of foot and mouth disease into New Zealand, but he would do what he could. She remained a little

mystified for the rest of the day about his reference to foot-and-mouth, and when he returned late in the evening enquired solicitously as to whether he had been overdoing it at work a bit lately, and wouldn’t a short holiday abroad be good for them both.

When he produced a well known Australian brand of cat food she was less mystified, and things became abundantly clear to her when the toll account included the not inconsiderable charge for a P. to P. to Sydney. And of course the grape-vine worked as well as the P. and T., and his colleagues knew the whole tale when he arrived at work the next morning. They are wondering if she will bring him a tin of dog-food on her return from her trip abroad.