A Friend I've Never Seen

"You'll never guess who I met today!" My mom has said that more times than we can count. She is very personable with a knack for finding something or someone in common with anybody she meets. At conferences or shows, she'll happen to find the one person in the room who is from, or is friends of someone from, our area of Indiana; or she'll meet our new neighbors almost before we do. (Yes, that happened! We had only been in our new house for a week or so when she met our new neighbors at an out-of-state wood carving show. I can't make up this stuff!)

Today was my turn to say it. I had to call Comcast to correct a bill. This would fall into the category of dreaded jobs that I wrote about a few days ago. I anticipated wasting an hour or more of my life on the phone being passed around to fifteen people, who may or may not even be in the United States.

Quite unexpectedly, calling the phone company was quick and pleasant. You'll never guess who I met on the other end.

The lady who took care of the billing problem, as soon as she saw I did alterations, got excited and started telling me about the sewing and fashion design she does. We ended up chatting for ten minutes like old friends.

Later, I looked up her business on Instagram and Facebook. She makes some fabulous clothes!

What I liked best, though, was finding a connection with a real, live person on a random phone call who lives states away from me. Who knows if we'll ever meet in real life? In any case, meeting her on the phone made my day.

On a rabbit trail from that thought, it's easy to forget in the frustration of going through a phone maze, there's another real, live person on the other end who has a home and family and just is trying to earn a living. Be pleasant to that person! Maybe you'll be the bright spot in their day. (For the record, I'm talking about a non-adversarial call. I realize debt collectors are trained in bullying tactics to shake people down. Jesus died for their sins, too.)