who am I? you tell me!

I am just sitting down to enjoy the morning routine with Baby when the phone rings.
The call display tells me it’s an unknown number, long distance. I ignore the call and begin to feed Baby.

My cell phone rings. Unknown number.
This time I answer.

It’s my credit card company calling wanting to talk to me about my current credit card balance. The very polite girl on the other end of the phone asks me to verify my personal information before we can continue. In this day and age of identity theft and bogus phone calls where people try to steal your personal information I reply with “no, you tell me who I am. How do I know you are who you say you are?”
She says “because I am calling from Such&Such Bank”.

“But how do I know that?”
“Because I am telling you that I am.”

We go back and forth for a little while. Then she concedes and says “okay, I will tell you part of your address and birth year and you can complete the rest”.

This meets with my approval so we continue and my call is forwarded onwards. They probably forwarded me on to the “hard to deal with customers” section of their little call centre office. I’m pleased.

The next young sweet girl who gets on the phone informs me that I have missed 2 payments on my credit card. I feign surprise and apologize. I then let her know that I will make sure to pay off the outstanding balance as soon as I get off the phone. She begins this series of questions – do you own or rent your home? What is your main source of income? Is there any other numbers we can reach you at? What is your blood type? How many partners have you had? Do you have any venereal diseases? (clearly the last 3 were not asked, but they really do get personal with their questioning!)

This sweet young girl then wanted to know why I had missed the payments so I let her know that I’ve recently had a baby and that Baby keeps me quite busy! She replies with “really? is that the reason?”. The disbelief in her voice could be heard the next town over – like how could having a baby really change your life. I ask if she has any children.

She replies with “no, but I have little brothers.”

That is the exact same thing.

And now I am off to do laundry as Baby spit up on the couch. Good timing Baby!