Having a chat with Eleanor Rigby

[jjllbb]

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?

And more importantly, where did they get my store's phone number??!

Lonely old ladies sure do love to have 10 minute phone conversations about nothing when the store is terribly busy and we're shorthanded. Almost as if they're doing it on purpose.

And I still can't bring myself to tell them to shove it and get a life.

My horrible ingrained need to be nice and polite just encourages them to drone endlessly through every thought they've ever had.

And once I work them around until they're just about to say goodbye they say something like "you've been so very nice. You know I once knew someone who..." and start the vicious cycle all over again.

[Teefies2]

Now see if it's me (I do TRY not to be sucky like your caller) and someone has been unbelievably nice, then I'll tell them how nice they are and ask to speak to a supervisor so that I can put a compliment on their record ... but I DON'T break into another story about how I knew someone who knew someone who was someone's cousin's brother-in-law that was nice like them!

[Argabarga]

Oh how I'd long to wipe the dirt from my hands as I walk from HER grave..... maybe then she'd be QUIET

[Mr Hero]

This topic made me think of two things.

1. Pip Pumhandle from Animaniacs. Voiced by Ben Stein.

2. The time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m'shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Gimme five bees for a quarter.", you'd say. Now where was I? Oh, yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

[Sheldonrs]

Here's a possible response to the lonely elderly that isn't rude and might get them off the phone quicker:

"Excuse me Ma'am, but at your age, shouldn't you be out crossing off items from your bucket list while you can?".

:-)

[MoonCat]

Oh, the chatty ones! Some of them are amusing, and some are a PITA. My favorite was a retired gentleman who used to work in a mine in Wales. He had a ton of stories and we probably talked for nearly an hour. Well, it wasn't busy that day, luckily...

[Whiskey]

Give them each others phone numbers.

[Ironclad Alibi]

"Excuse me Ma'am, but at your age, shouldn't you be out crossing off items from your bucket list while you can?". :-)

The first item on her bucket list is to tell all of her stories to each person she talks to on the phone.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

2. The time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m'shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Gimme five bees for a quarter.", you'd say. Now where was I? Oh, yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

"Anyway, about my washtub...I just used it that morning to wash my turkey, which in those days was known as a "walking bird". We'd always have walking bird on Thanksgiving with all the trimmings: cranberries, injun eyes, yams stuffed with gunpowder! Then we'd all watch football, which in those days was called 'baseball'..."

[EricKei]

We'd always have walking bird on Thanksgiving with all the trimmings:

And, of course, we had to walk to the Thankgiving dinner table, and back home again afterwards, uphill both ways in the driving snow while it was a balmy 98 degrees outside...We had to share a pair of shoes among the fourteen of us, too...

[alowlypotato]

I love chatty old people! They brighten up my day at ye olde financial institution, with their talk of The War and Way Back When and My Day so Far and Modern Things That Cause Confusion. And they always compliment and notice things that others don't (the first person to comment on my engagement ring was an older lady ) and are so very polite. My favorite members are my elderly regulars!

...but, on the same token, I totally feel ya with the whole, "ummm busy, gotta go, but...don't want to hurt your feelings! Ahh!" Sometimes, you just want to tell someone that they've got to go now so you can help other patrons, no matter how sweet they are.

"Anyway, about my washtub...I just used it that morning to wash my turkey, which in those days was known as a "walking bird". We'd always have walking bird on Thanksgiving with all the trimmings: cranberries, injun eyes, yams stuffed with gunpowder! Then we'd all watch football, which in those days was called 'baseball'..."

"Baseball? That some new-fangled slang, sonny? We played stickball in my day. With an actual stick, and some slightly round piece of what-have-you that somebody picked up off the street. And we didn't watch nobody else playing, oh no. We didn't have these 'radios you watch' back then (waste o' money, if you ask me)."