Phone Tag, I'm It

The phone rings one Monday morning at around ten-thirty. Fernando checks out the caller ID, but it's not his distributor nor the government, but rather “Wireless Caller.” As this is well before opening, Fernando does not answer. The secondary reason is he is just about to head out the door to walk the half-mile or so to his credit union in order to make a deposit in his business account so his payments to various organizations are assured to go through and the Dominion is not denied minor, unimportant things like running water or electricity. As he steps out, the phone is on its sixth or seventh ring.

As this also happens to be Labor Day, you can guess how well that plan worked out for our intrepid hero. He doesn't really pay attention to most holidays, since what's a holiday to a Keeper of a Dominion? Generally a day on which he makes more money. But he is not perturbed, since it is a rather nice day and a little bit of exercise never hurt anybody (unless they are one of those terminally obese people who need the lifter-machines to get into their magic wheelchairs, I suppose).

Fernando takes his time coming back to the store, swinging by the post office to throw a couple of bills into the exterior mailbox. He sees three or four of his customers drive by along the highway as he ambles down the sidewalk. They wave and he waves back.

When he gets back to the store about twenty minutes later, the phone is ringing. Again or still, Fernando has no clue, but the caller ID still reads Wireless Caller. Fernando settles into his chair and fires up Dungeons of Dredmor as the phone jangles on in the background. After the eighteenth ring (of which Fernando was aware) it finally ceases.

“Persistent bugger, aren't you?” Fernando remarks to himself and the Guardian Spiders in his office's hidden places.

Opening time eventually comes around and Fernando does that. In true Saladolsa fashion, the weather had transitioned from “pretty dang nice” to “overcast rainstorm” in the intervening hours, and Fernando made amazing amounts of money because people could not enjoy their day off outdoors. Oh, if only it had not been rent-one-get-one-free.

Around 5 PM, as Fernando is in the middle of helping a customer, the phone rings again. This is not the first call Fernando had received since opening, as people wanted to find out what he still had in stock and to place reservations on the things which would otherwise be snapped up.

“Excuse me for one second,” Fernando tells the nice lady, one of Fernando's regulars. He scoops the phone up. “Hello, Dominion of Movies.”

“Finally!” Fernando does not recognize this male voice at all.

Fernando blinks. “Er. How can I help you?”

“I've been trying to call you all day and you finally pick up now?”

“Um...I guess so. What can I do for you?”

“I need you to tell me if you have some movies.”

“Sure thing.”

Awkward silence blooms. Fernando assumed that the implicit invitation to begin rattling off titles was apparent, but this was not the case. Both Fernando and the strange man begin speaking at the same time after a short while.

“Hey! Are you there?”

“What were you looking for?”

More silence. The nice customer lady places money on the countertop and mouths, “Thanks, see you later,” before taking her movies and departing.

“Hello?” Fernando says at last.

There's no answer. There's no “call disconnected” deep-deep-deep so he tries again.

“Hello?”

Still nothing. Fernando waits for ten or fifteen more seconds before hanging up.

The guy never called back, nor did anyone indignant end up stopping by to firebomb the store.