I am calm, and I have been calm for three hours and 12 minutes, which I believe is a personal record.
Our dishwasher stopped draining on a Wednesday. It is under warranty. The warranty card says to call a toll-free number, so on Thursday at 9:02 a.m., I called the toll-free number, and a recorded woman told me that my call was important to them.
I was pleased to hear it. I said, “Thank you.” I want to be clear that I started out on good terms with this woman.
She then asked me to hold, and a flute began to play. It was a short piece of music, 14 seconds long, and at the end of the 14 seconds it began again, and it never once resolved. It went up, as if it were about to arrive somewhere, and then it went back to the beginning. I have since timed it 640 times. It never arrives.
Every 82 seconds, the flute stopped and the woman came back to tell me that my call was important to them. Around the ninth time, I began keeping a tally on the back of the warranty card. Around the 30th time, I stopped saying “thank you.” Around the 40th time, she added a new line. She said, “Did you know that you can find answers to many common questions on our website?”
I KNOW ABOUT THE WEBSITE. THE WEBSITE IS WHY I AM CALLING.
I apologize. The website had told me to call. I am calm.
Let me tell you what I have come to understand about the word “important.” When something is important to me, I do not tell it so every 82 seconds. I attend to it. My wife is important to me. I have not once put her on hold and played her a flute. The grocery store is important to me, and I have gone every Saturday at 9:15 for 23 years. I DID NOT STAND IN THE PARKING LOT AND TELL THE GROCERY STORE IT WAS IMPORTANT TO ME. I WENT IN.
Fine.
At the two-hour mark, still holding, I used our other phone, the one in the kitchen, to call Dr. Chad Brickhouse at the Institute for Common Sense, who I find is always available. He picked up on the first ring, from what sounded like a car wash. I asked him whether it is reasonable for a company to say a call is important and then not answer it. He said any reasonable person would answer an important call, that it was just common sense, and then he said, “Can you hold on? I’ve got another call.” He was gone for nine minutes. When he came back, he said, “Your call is important to me,” and I want to believe he meant it as a joke, but I have known Dr. Brickhouse for some time, and I do not believe he makes them.
At three hours and 11 minutes, on the 146th time she told me my call was important, the flute stopped and a human being came on the line. He said, “Thank you for holding, my name is Kyle, how can I help you today?” I said, “Kyle.” That is all I got to say. The call dropped. I was not told why. Kyle is out there somewhere, ready to help me, and I will never find him.
So here is my proposal, which I think is modest. I am not asking for shorter holds. I am a reasonable man, and I understand that dishwashers break in great numbers. I am asking only that any company in the nation that tells a man his call is important be required, by law, to prove it, by calling him back and holding for him for the same length of time, listening to the same flute, while he goes about his day. If my call is important to them, I would like them to find out what that is like.
I am washing the dishes by hand now. I don’t mind it. I find I hum while I do it, and what I hum is 14 seconds long, and it goes up, and it does not arrive.
My blood pressure on Monday was 136 over 89. Last week it was 135 over 88. The nurse told me she would be right back with the doctor, and asked me to hold, and I am told I made a sound.