In 1978, I met a new friend who worked for a local Social Services agency. They were required to answer the phone in a rather lengthy, polite and annoyingly specific way. It went like this: “Good Morning, Bingingham County Department of Social Service, this is Marvella Marshling, how may I help you?” One got the impression that workers might be fired if they deviated from this salutation. Also, they delivered it in one whole breath so there was no gap where you could interject “Hey, it’s me…” Nope. You had to wait through the whole annoying thing.
I joked with friends that Marvella was SO serious when she answered the phone that I wondered if she would even notice if I used a fake name. I wondered if there was a “next” part of the phone dialogue speech. Basically, I just had too much time on my hands. So one day, when her secretary answered and asked “How may I help you?” I asked for Marvella. The secretary said “Your name please?” and I said the most bizarre name I could think of at the time, “Zelda Hoffenheimer”. I have absolutely no idea why.
Marvella came on the line and, bless her little heart, REPEATED the same annoying greeting, to which I replied, rather chortingly, “it’s me, (insert actual name) ha ha ha “.
She didn’t ha ha quite as much as I did, but it remained a joke between us. (What I didn’t know was that her mother’s name actually was Zelda. How freaky). I would leave messages “from Zelda” and our Christmas greetings over the years referenced Zelda.
Fast forward to 2007. I hadn’t seen Marvella in a few years and I dropped in on her at her church (she is an Episcopal priest). Her secretary asked my name so she could go see if she was “busy”. I had Grace with me and I think she thought I needed a ticket to the funny farm when I answered, with a very straight face, that my name was “Zelda”.
I heard a commotion from the back as the secretary announced me. Marvella and I greeted each other joyously, I asked her if she knew right away that it was me, and she said that her first thought was that her mom had dropped in to see her. I said that I thought that her mom had been dead for about 10 years. Yup, she said, you were my next guess.
In the car, on the way home, Grace asked me all serious-like, why I told that nice lady my name was Zelda when it’s not. Poor baby, I guess it must have sounded confusing. But now they all know and Zelda is a joke around our house too. Since this blog is incognito and I make shallow attempts to conceal identities, it is also a buzzword for all things secret.
And now you know…the rest of the story (Paul Harvey’s famous line).
