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THERE. IT'S DONE! I just hung up from a sixty-four minute phone call. It's one I had been dragging my feet on because Past Experience had been whispering in my ear..."a call to Tech Support? Ha! Feel like grabbin' a big ol' chunk of your time and throwing it down a hole? Got so much to spare you can just toss it away?!" Meanwhile, I've got this brand new laptop computer and it refuses to play my video clips.

 This problem kept nudging me, giving me little pokes. " Go on! Make the call! How else are you ever going to solve this?"   And I really did want to post video clips again. There are so many moving moments that I've wished to share. So I gritted my teeth and made the call.

First there was the preliminary wait.

Then there was the conversation with the Disembodied Voice. D.V. was patient, but wanted answers. And D.V. was only going to let me give specific answers, of which "I don't know" or "well, here's the thing..." were definitely not options. Eventually, D.V. presented me with a real live human being, wonder of wonders!

Everything I told the D.V. was repeated to a soft-spoken young woman, who gave me a case number, and passed me along to another department.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Flowers blossomed on my doodling paper. Then geometric shapes. Tick. Tick. Tick. Then scribbling: okay. okay. mr hewlett packard. will it be anytime this centu--

"Hello?" I was connected once again. This time with a heavily-accented young man who spoke politely, and introduced himself as Rajah. Was I having a good day? he asked. How endearing! Did he really wish to know? Should I tell this young man on the phone how I rushed to the recycling center at noon today, only to find a closed gate--Oh, botheration, today is the fourth Saturday of the month, not the third!

Should I tell him about the call a few minutes earlier from a tenant of mine, complaining about a live bird in his attic, and, no, he couldn't wait until Monday, it needed to be removed now!?

I explained my computer problem for a third time and drummed my fingers while he put me on hold to research it.  Back on the line once again, Rajah patiently explained that, unfortunately, ma'am, the Lumix camera would not work with the Vista 64 operating system of the notebook PC. There was nothing he could do for it, he said. Nothing! So sorry, ma'am! Now, if I were to call the technical support service for which there is a charge, they would be able to help me. Unlike this call, there would be no waiting in queue. But I would have to subscribe for a six-month term and pay fifty-nine dollars.

So...arrgh, here was the thing.  I could make another call. I could spend another hour or two on the phone. I could click this and click that...could click my fingers to the bone. I could have faith in Rajah  that there would be a positive result in the end. But as for this call, my fears were being realized. This call was coming to an end with nothing actually accomplished. Nothing to redeem the call.

I decided right then it was not going to happen!
This call was not going to be one more blot on my day!

"Where are you living, Rajah?" I asked.
"I am living in India" he replied.
"Really?" I responded, not in the least surprised. "Just last night I saw the movie Slumdog Millionaire. It's a terrific movie!"
He was instantly engaged. "It has already won thirteen awards!" he exclaimed.

"Yeah," I said. "I watched white the movie got all those Golden Globes! Now that I've seen it, I'm hoping it gets Best Picture at the Oscars, too. It was well-done. Quite a movie!"
"I have to tell you," he said with fervor, "everything that you see in that movie, that is the way it really is! They didn't use made-up movie sets, or change things for the movie. It's all the way things actually are."
This was great; I was having a good time talking to Rajah.  I asked a lot of questions, extending the conversation. Rajah grew up in Bombay, he told me, and went to university there, too. He knew the city! It was easy to tell, as we both enthused about this movie made in India, that the whole country shares his pride in its success. He was reluctant to hang up. "What else can I help you with? Is there anything else you want to know about your computer?" he urged me to stay on the phone.


There was nothing else. I wanted help with my videos!  I still want help with my videos!   I had to hang up without resolution.

But in the end, you see, I redeemed that phone call.  In the end, it was a bright spot in my day.--a bright little spot of human connection across continents. And who knows, possibly the same for Rajah, living somewhere in India

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