Thank you for Holding

Live Blogging my phone call to my grad school's Financial Aid office:

10:50 a.m: "Thank you for calling. Because of the time and attention we devote to every call, there may be a wait."

10:55 a.m: "There are nine callers in the queue ahead of you. Please stay on the line for our next financial aid representative."

11:00 a.m: Run into Gelson's clutching phone to ear. Buy lunch. Run to Starbuck's. Phone still attached. No representative.

11:15 a.m: Return to work. Still hearing chipper voice: "We apologize for the delay. Please continue to hold."

11:45 a.m: Office starts taking bets on how long I'll be on.

11:50 a.m: Start to feel like serious sucker for letting cell phone minutes just burn. Have feeling that after terminating call a young associate will say, "Thank you for calling the Financial Aid office. How may I help you? Hello? Hello?"

12:15 p.m: Starting to have nervous breakdown over cell phone bill. Have used 1/8 of my anytime minutes.

12:25 p.m: Co-workers conflicted. Directly next to me, I'm encouraged to stay on. (Suspect her parents pay for her cell bill.) Behind me, I hear, "I would have hung up a LONG time ago."

12:27 p.m: Terminate call. Can't believe I held that long. Almost as bad as sitting through the movie Congo without leaving. Almost.

So not only has my tuition increased exponentially but my cell bill might have too.

What we do for a good graduate education. And a Division I football team. Must keep remembering school pride.