Day 274 – Lines of Communication

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274/365 (Oct 1, 2011) – Remember when dialling “0” got you a real (local) person, immediately? I remember dialling the Operator. Heck, I remember the party line at my grandparents farm. That was kinda cool. The phone would ring and depending on how it rang, it may or may not have been for your house. If you were feeling snoopy, you ‘could’ listen in, but you usually got caught so it was better not to do it.

My neighbour was an Operator and it saved her cat once. I came home from elementary school and the neighbour’s cat had been hit by a car and was lying in the middle of the street. Kizzy, that was his name, Kizzy-Kat, and he was a tough, big, black cat. I also baby-sat him and loved him dearly. But at that moment he was a terrified, hurt, animal that needed help. I was too young to know what to do. I grabbed a towel and slid him onto it and gently moved him to the lawn so he was off the road. And I knocked and rang on the neighbour’s door. But no one was home. I was crying and didn’t know who to call, then I remembered that Laurel was an Operator. I ran home, picked up the phone, dialled zero, and desperately told the person who answered that I had to speak with Laurel. I was transferred to her and told her what happened, very soon after her brother came racing home in his car and took Kizzy to the vet. His jaw was broken and he was pretty battered otherwise. They wired him up, he ate yogurt and pablum for quite some time, but he recovered fully and was even tougher than before.

All because zero got me a person.