reminder cards

[Ron Nossaman]

Through the years, the reality of service scheduling has shown itself to me
to be just a tad on the surrealistic side. Consider please...

There have been (that I remember) maybe four or five times in the last
twenty years or so that I cleverly managed to look at either the wrong day
of the week, or the wrong week altogether as I was performing the
ritualistic combinatorial coffee infusion/schedule transcription from my
favorite "Far Side" mug, and "Week at a Glance" to my alleged body, and
note pad/brains at a glance pocket list - respectively - as I tried to
assemble some sort of workable reality at my desk in the morning, for the
remains of the day. 

If you're still with me after all that, I'm impressed, but I haven't
arrived at the point yet. 

The interesting part comes when I show up on the wrong porch (we don't have
"stoops" here), at the right time on the wrong day altogether, and my
wondrously gracious and resilient customers throw the door open and
cheerfully allow such a piteously and hopelessly disorganized wraith into
their homes under such conditions. If there were even a hint of cockles in
my heart, this would without a doubt warm them. There is of course, the
implicit inconveniencing of the   innocent who had rightfully reserved the
time slot I had so randomly bequeathed to another person altogether through
a process of relative stupidity and general unawareness. That has been
traditionally resolved (relative term) after the fact through a process of
back pedalling, scheduling compromises, and intermittent apologetic
grovelling, as necessary. Fortunately, my customers tend to be sterling
individuals of exemplary character, possessed of extraordinary magnanimity
and the capacity to extend clemency to a well meaning but somewhat
scattered large hairy piano technician such as myself, and tend to cut me
more slack than I likely deserve.

The upshot here is that there's probably a better than even chance that you
could dispense altogether with reminder cards and calls and just show up on
the porch (stoop) unannounced, tuning hammer at "order arms", and be
welcomed in like an old friend. Even if it didn't exactly work like that,
it should be vastly entertaining to try. 

This is a thoroughly spooky business.

Ron N