‘Are you still on hold?’ my wife frowned, shutting the door behind her and dropping her car keys in the bowl.
I grimaced at her and nodded, afraid that if I spoke I would miss the person who answered the call and they would immediately hang up on me.
‘Jason, I was gone for three hours.’
I pulled the phone away from my face and glanced at the timer ticking upwards under the calling screen. ‘About three hours, twenty-five minutes,’ I said, rushing the words. ‘And twelve seconds.’
‘That’s how long you’ve been on hold?’ she asked, aghast.
‘Nope,’ I shook my head. ‘That’s how long it’s been since you left. I’ve been on hold for nearly four hours.’
She raised her eyebrows in disbelief and I shrugged.
‘Lotta time to do math, and not much else.’
‘You could have folded the washing.’
‘That’s a risk you think I was willing to take?’
‘I was out long enough to get a brake repair near Ringwood!’
‘Oh, you always say that,’ I scoffed. She rolled her eyes and walked towards the kitchen, grocery bags in tow.
‘Did you get the chips I like?’ I called after her. She ignored me. I didn’t blame her.
‘Chips?’ came a new voice and I nodded to myself absentmindedly.
‘Yeah, my wife never gets the chips I like when she goes shopping,’ I explained. ‘Those nacho ones with the really cheesy—wait, oh my god!’
‘Sir?’ the very confused customer service operator asked. ‘I’m sorry, sir?’
‘Nothing!’ I said, panic and relief mingling in my veins. ‘No, I just, I wasn’t expecting you to—and my wife, she threw me, she just got back from our local mechanic around Ringwood, so she’s a little annoyed, so I’m a little frazzled, and I’ve been waiting so damn—’
The phone clicked. A dial tone rang out.
My eye twitched, the phone still pressed to my ear.
‘That was quick,’ my wife said, wandering back into the room with the laundry basket. ‘Jason?’
She evidently couldn’t hear the sound of my soul cracking into a million little pieces.