Diary of a St Ivean

A telephone call from the AA.
'This is the AA."
"I don't have a car."
A silence, then:
Oh, does someone in your household have a car?"
"No."
A longer silence. I have an image of the man at the AA end of the phone searching his script for a response. But clearly there isn't one.
Lamely:
"Oh, well. Thank you anyway." Then he rang off.

*

A few days later a telephone call from a pleasant lady from the Daily Telegraph.
"We're ringing you because you're one of our regular readers."
"But I'm not one of your regular readers."
"Oh. That's funny because it says here you're one of our regular readers."
"But I'm afraid I'm not one of your regular readers."
"Have you never been one of our regular readers?'
"No."
"So you've never picked the paper up?"
"Oh, I've picked it up, but I've never been one of your regular readers."
"May I ask you why you're not one of our regular readers?"
"I have a different view of the world."
A chuckle from the other end of the phone. Then a last try:
"We can offer you a 56% discount on the paper..."
"But I'm not tempted."
This time a real laugh from the Daily Telegraph lady, but before I could ask her why on earth the Daily Telegraph was offering discounts to regular readers, she'd gone.