6/16/2014

If my last name were Peters or Patterson or anything so pedestrian, it would have earned me an earful, but Fitzpatrick was a get out of jail free card that I quickly cashed.  A man called, hopping mad, upset by the fact of our answering machine and what it told him about the people behind it.  He explained to me all that was wrong with the modern world, with emails and voicemails and other instruments of confusion.  These are not conversations that often end.  Then he asked me my name.  “Sean Fitzpatrick, sir.”  This followed by the rarest of rarities in a conversation like this:  A bona fide pause, a break in the yelling for the processing of information.  “Oh,” came a different voice, “my name is Patrick.  That’s a fine name.”  Another pause, this one less rare, this one recovering from an interrupted train of thought.  I don’t mind if someone is angry by nature so long as they are easily distractible.  “Well, anyway, Mr. Patrick, I read in your newsletter that...”  If all Helen’s constituents were old Irish men, I think I could make a living doing this.