BELLS ARE RINGING

A friend and I were reminiscing about things we used to do to earn extra money.  I told about Gary Smith's paying me to write book reports for him every six weeks.  Gary was a year behind me in school and I did this for four years.  After Mrs. Craig had told him that she didn't believe that he had written one of the book reports, Gary told me that I needed to write "C" book reports for him.   I archly replied, "I don't know how to write poor book reports!"  Gary said, "Misspell some words or something."  I told him that he could misspell some words when he copied the report!

After starting to work, I knew several people who had problems getting up to go to work.  After watching the Judy Holliday movie Bells Are Ringing, I was inspired to offer my services to call people to waken them!  The business in the movie was named "Susannahphone";  I called mine "SUZYPHONE"!

When I asked my clientele why they didn't just use an alarm clock, they all invariably responded that it was very easy to turn off a ringing clock but they had to physically arise to answer the telephone.  I was astounded that the people would actually pay me to call them!

I maintain a list of the OLDEST LIES IN THE WORLD which contains excuses people use, and one person actually used the excuse that "Sue didn't call me" as his reason for being absent.  I reminded him that he had not paid his bill for two weeks and that I had had to discontinue my "service"!

Years later when I was in management, I would call people who had not called in as absent;  nearly always they had just overslept.  I heard one of my favorite people, Diana, tell others, "There's nothing worse than hearing Sue say "Good morning!" and you know you've overslept!"