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Information Please - Jokes Etc - Nairaland

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Information Please by feelgood(m): 9:46am On Jun 30, 2006
I remember when I was too little to reach the telephone. Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person. Her name was Information Please, and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply anybody's number and the correct time.

My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn't seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway. The telephone! Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear. "Information Please," I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.

A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear. "Information."

"I hurt my finger," I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.

"Isn't your mother home?"

"Nobody's home but me," I blubbered.

"Are you bleeding?" the voice asked.

"No," I replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts."

"Can you open your icebox?" she asked. I said I could. "Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger," said the voice.

After that, I called Information Please for everything. I asked her for help with my geography, and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me the chipmunk that I had caught in the park just the day before, would eat fruit and nuts.

When our pet canary died, I called Information Please and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown ups say to soothe a child. I asked her, "Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?"

She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, "Honey, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in." Somehow I felt better.

Another day I was on the telephone. "Information," said the now familiar voice.

"How do you spell fix?" I asked.

When I was nine years old, we moved across the country. I missed my friend very much. Somehow , I never thought of trying the shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall.

A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half-an-hour or so between planes. I spent 15 minutes or soon the phone with my sister. Then, without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, "Information, please."

Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well. "Information."

I hadn't planned this, but I heard myself saying, "Could you please tell me how to spell fix?" There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, "I guess your finger must have healed by now."

I laughed, "It's really still you," I said. "I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me."

"I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls."

I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister. "Please do," she said. "Just ask for Sally."

Three months later I was back in Seattle. I asked for Sally. "Are you a friend?" the unfamiliar voice asked.

"Yes, a very old friend," I answered.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this," she said. "Sally had been working part time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago."

Before I could hang up she said, "Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?"

"Yes."

"Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you: 'Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in'. He'll know what I mean."

~ Author unknown
Re: Information Please by Nobody: 7:18pm On May 13, 2010
I now see why nobody responded to this thread after almost[size=16pt] 4 years[/size]
grin grin grin grin grin grin grin
Re: Information Please by InesQor(m): 4:32am On May 14, 2010
Beautiful story right here. smiley
Re: Information Please by Mhismole(f): 4:36am On May 14, 2010
you beat me to it :p

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