Etiquette

I feel there is a universal and yet unspoken etiquette about what time you can phone people. A sort of tele - comm - unications watershed.
There are of course exceptions, you may have pre-arranged a call, or there may be an emergency. And of course there are people who are close enough to be not bound by rules of etiquette.
So my watershed times would be before 8 and after 22.00.
When I worked at Mayhem, I was happy to take calls before 8 o'clock because when you are a teacher you're almost impossible to get hold of during the day. So between 7.30 and 8 and then again from 15 - 18.00 except on meetings nights, fair enough.

I don't, however feel it's ok for people I don't even know to phone up before 8.
This morning the phone rang while I was still in bed.
'Hi, it's Heather, do you know the landlord's e-mail?' A voice brimming with unnecessary energy.
'Hi Heather, I think you have the wrong number, I have no landlord.'

Outside, the rain poured. I only had one school booked in and they were arriving at 12.30. Thus I had organised some help to arrive at 12.15. The school arrived at midday. A man came into the Nature House.
'Ah! You're not Maria,' I joked.
'I'm not Maria,' he confirmed.
'No, you don't look like a Maria,' I kept flogging that dead horse.
Perplexed look.
'I was expecting Maria,' I explained, 'I was making a joke.'
'Oh! Oh! Hahahahaha, no, I am not Maria.'

Ah well, Maria was on mat leave, fortunately the cover teacher had a teaching assistant to actually organise everything. She seemed quite cross, but then who wouldn't? she had 30 children and a teacher to run.
I have seen this teacher-type so often, his attempts at getting children to do anything were like watching someone trying to keep sand in a sieve.

Incompetence, jeez, I can excuse mistakes, we all make them, but not the type of incompetence that results in embarrassment to me.
I get paid by cheque and today was payday. I zapped down to the bank to pay the cheque into my account.
'Savings or chequing?' asked the teller.
'Chequing.'
'Is it this one?' she asked, showing me both accounts on the screen.
'No, that one,' I said pointing ON THE SCREEN to the actual account.
'It's the one with $2.92 in it,' I said, just to cover all possible bases.
She told me that I could only use $500 straight away because that was just the account I have, the rest would be held until the cheque cleared.
'No problem.' Then she went off and came back again. Everything takes longer than it should in the bank. Meanwhile a woman at the next station talked non-stop into a cell phone earpiece, organising the evening. I was given my receipt and went on my way.
Until I tried to pay using my debit card at the supermarket.
'Bing!' went the machine, 'insufficient funds!' came up on the little screen. I made a sort of strangled noise and whipped out the credit card.
At home, I checked what by then had become my theory, and yes, in spite of everything, it had been paid into the other account, but I felt such a twat at the checkout. Doesn't everyone who gets declined make some sort of 'must be a banking mistake,' comment?
Or maybe there actually are a great many more banking mistakes than we realise.

But of course, it could all just have been Friday the 13th. Who knows ?