JOY ALONG THE WAY: HELP! DISCRIMINATION! CALL THE PHONE POLICE

R-r-r-rinng.

"Hello."

"Mrs. Masley?"

"It's Mosley. Long o."

"Well, how are you today, ma'am?" The voice was so cheerful, full of energy and purpose. "I'm (I didn't catch the name nor the next few words of his identification. The only words I heard distinctly were "I'm" and "windows").

I receive at least one call a month from someone who is interested in my windows -- replacement that is. They are perfectly good windows. But as soon as I hear that telephoned word, windows, I usually say, "I don't do windows" and hang up. Have I been smart alecky? Ruined someone's day? Unkind? Oh, well, I'll make up for it some day. Maybe this was the day. Nothing much else doing.

The voice was continuing while I was mentally assessing my progress toward trying to be a kinder, gentler person.

When the voice ceased, I responded to the last question I remembered. "I'm not very well today."

He quickly assured me that we'd all feel better if it would only rain. "It's a heap hot down here in Arkansas."

He had the right voice and inflection for an Arkansan. In fact, he sounded like Congressman Asa Hutchison, and I love his mellow tone and accent. I could pick it out with my eyes shut during the impeachment trial, but I could not help thinking the caller really might have been down there on Main or Water Street where even here it was 108 degrees F.

He skipped right over the state of my health and asked, "Mrs. Mosley, did you get our brochure in the mail last week?"

Rather than be unkind and tell him that most brochures I pluck from the mail box go straight to the waste basket, I said, "I don't remember."

He was so understanding. "Maybe it got lost in the junk mail. We do get a lot of that, don't we? But never mind, we have lots of them and can mail you another one. Now, ma'am, I'm not trying to sell you anything (that's a buzz sentence telephone solicitors have latched onto). I just want to tell you about this brochure. There are 11 questions in it, and if you answer all of them, we'll give you 10 dollars right on the spot. Now how about that for a good deal?"

"How do you propose to do this right-on-the-spot thing?"

"Easy. We have a representative cruising in your area this very afternoon. I assume you're still at 703. He could drop in and ... ."

"Oh, no. I haven't a cookie in the house, nor a Coke. Not even a glass of buttermilk. And the napkins aren't ironed. Besides I really am not very well today. I'm having one of my bad days and can hardly get around. In fact, I'm in bed right now." I really was in bed, trying to ease my feet.

There was instant solicitude, so characteristic of those dear southern people who feel our pain. Such a nice fellow. He wanted to know if someone was around to help me, even though we both knew by this time that we were stringing each other along. "Can J.B. help you any?" he asked.

"I'm J.B.," I said.

There was a short time-out silence. No doubt he was doing some mental processing himself. Telephone directories don't give extraneous information. "You mean you're sick and in bed and there's no one around?"

This was getting red-flag tricky. I must be cautious. But surely on one with a voice like that could be "casing" 703.

"Oh, I'm never alone," I responded brightly. Arkansas is considered to be in the Bible Belt, isn't it? I thought it a good, true answer.

Then, right out of the blue, and with a no nonsense voice, he asked. "How old are you, Mrs. Mosley?" That! From a soft-voiced southern gentleman. Hutchison would never have asked a question like that, but I was in my kind and gentle mode again so gave him the current year of my journey through the octogenarian decade.

"Oh ... (Fill in your favorite naughty word)." Slam went his receiver, enough to break my perfectly good windows, and tell me he was no longer interested.

Age discrimination! Shall I call the proper agency?

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.