Peerless Television Service and Repair

I Tap the Market for Memory Enhancement

    I began to think that I could predict when a call was meant for Peerless rather than for me or Albertine or Memoirs While You Wait. “Is my thinking that I have an uncanny ability beyond those of mortal men evidence of some kind of madness?” I asked msyelf. After a period of self-examination, I decided that it wasn’t, but then, after I’d thought about it a little more, I decided I’d better ask someone rational.
    “Al,” I said, while we were in the kitchen putting our breakfasts together. “I want to ask you something, but I don’t want it to make you think I’m crazy.”
    “Oh, go ahead and try me,” she said, arranging on a red plate five tiny rounds sliced from a ficele in a pattern so that their centers fell at the points of a star.
    “I’m beginning to think that I can predict when a call is meant for Peerless.”
    She began adding additional ficelle rounds at the intersections of the lines that would have connected the star’s points if those lines had been drawn on the plate.
    “You’re nuts,” she said.
    “I thought you might say that,” I said with a chuckle, taking the jar of garlic pickle from the refrigerator. “Nonetheless, I’m convinced that it’s true. I think there’s something about the quality of the ring. When the call is intended for Peerless, I hear something desperate in it.”
    “In the ring?”
    “Yes. A kind of desperation. A desperate plea.”
    “Mm.”
    “Sometimes, though, I hear something more subtle than desperation. I think it’s longing, a poignant longing for someone who can make things right, or at least restore the status quo ante, make things as right as they were before something went wrong with the TV. The poignant ring has something in it of universal human misery, but localized, specified, personalized. The phone, and by extension the caller, seem to be pleading with me, that is with Peerless TV, or with Dominic himself, to answer, to help, to save the ailing television set.”
    She regarded me with pleading eyes. I looked deep into them. I could tell what she was going to say. “You’re going to say that you’d really like to be allowed to read the news and eat your breakfast in peace,” I said.
    “You’re uncanny,” she told me.
    “I’ll save it all for the cocktail hour,” I said.
    I’d do anything for that woman.
    After breakfast, I returned to my workroom. The phone rang almost at once. I was sure it was a Peerless call.
    “This is Peter Leroy,” I said, departing from my usual crisp script, “and I’m willing to bet that you’re trying to reach Peerless TV.”
    “I sure am. I have kind of an emergency. You see, the thing is this: my husband crashed into our TV.”
    “He crashed into your TV?”
    “That’s what I’m sayin’.”
    “With a car?”
    “No! With his own self.”
    “Deliberately?”
    “Not deliberately. No. I wouldn’t say that. I would say awkwardly, but not deliberately.”
    “I see.”
    “My husband is an old man, you know. He’s not as balanced as he used to be, you know what I’m saying? So he was coming around the corner from the kitchen carrying his tray with his dinner on it, kind of off-killter the way he goes, and he had a sort of spasm and crashed into the TV. Spilled the tray and all.”
    “Is he all right?”
    “Honey, at our age, you’re never all right, but he’s not so bad.”
    “I’m glad to hear it.”
    “The TV, though, that’s another story.”
    “You ought to call Peerless TV.”
    “I’m under the impression that that’s what I’m doing.”
    “No, you’ve reached Peter Leroy, Memoirist.”
    “Memoirist? Is that like a memory expert?”
    “More like a memory enhancer.”
    “Ooh. My husband could use that. He sure as heaven could. His memory is worse than his balance.”
    “Well, if he decides to write his memoirs, have him give me a call, but I can’t help you with your TV set.”
    “I understand that. You’re not Peerless. You told me. But do you really mean that about my husband?”
    “I do.”
    “You’re sure this isn’t just the old brushoff?”
    “Pretty sure,” I said.