Siam Trucking Company

My day didn't start off well. When I walked into my office the message light on my phone glowed. That usually means someone is calling me because they are desperate - or they don't know me well enough to know that I'm not usually here to answer the phone at 7:30.

This morning, it was the latter case. Not only did this person not know me, she sounded like she was talking into a towel, I couldn't understand the message she left, and she didn't give me a number to call her back. I thought she said she was calling from the "Siam Trucking Company." All I could understand from her message was that I was supposed to call "Jim" to schedule my delivery. Then she gave a number, with about 11 or 12 digits, where I could reach him. He was apparently at another trucking company.

I am expecting, and the campus is expecting, with great anticipation, delivery of our telephone directories, which are later than ever this year. I assumed the mysterious "Jim" and the even more mysterious "Siam Trucking Company" had them — and they'd never be delivered if I couldn't return their call.

I listened to the message five times, and still came up with 11 numbers. Sometimes 12. So, I forwarded the message to Paula and asked her to listen. She came up with 11 also. She thought maybe what I interepreted as a "1" was really an "uhm." She listened again. "No, I guess it's a one."

She volunteered to call all of the different 10-digit versions of the number she could formulate. One was an airline, another a florist or something. She did reach a phone that kept ringing with no answer. She kept calling this number and finally spoke to Jim himself. He had no idea what we were talking about and had never heard of the Siam Trucking Company. He did mention another company - something like Sciatica - and we assumed that must have been who called.

He said okay you say I'm going to receive an order, maybe two skids, but you don't really know how big, and then I'm supposed to bring it to Bradley University, but I don't have this order and how am I going to deliver something I don't have?

I have promised the whole world the directories would definitely be here this week. Jim hasn't called me back. I just hope the books aren't sitting on a dock somewhere in Thailand.