Customer Service

It started with a phone call. "Hello," said the voice, "are you in?"
"Er... yes."
"What do I call you?"
"Michael."
"Mr Michael, I'm early. Can I come now?"
"That would be fantastic."

I'd already made my new place feel familiar - books scattered everywhere, washing up piled up in the sink, pieces of useless paper littering every available surface. This man, however, was finally about to transform my house into a home. I hadn't met him yet, but I already loved him.

He was about to install my internet connection, and, far more importantly, my access to live Premiership football.

He arrived a couple of minutes later, grinning, bespectacled and carrying plastic bags. I let him in, apologising for the mess, explaining, with scant regard for the truth, that I'd only just moved in. His opening gambit:
"You very handsome."
"Thanks," I said, blushing and giggling. He looked at me expectantly, and I was wondering whether he might lose face if I didn't reply that he was handsome too, when he blinked, knelt on the floor and, to my relief, busied himself with the tools of his job.

I offered him a chair. He refused, preferring to stay on his knees and slide himself across the floor, occasionally glancing up at me.
"Where you from?" he asked. I explained. For some reason he found my reply amusing. Fumbling around in his bag, he asked,
"You like seafood?" Somewhat unnerved, I began to explain that I liked some seafood, and that I love the taste of prawns but have to pretend I'm not eating them because their resemblance to large maggots offends my palate, when he interrupted with one word:
"Vouchers."

He said it as if he'd just produced the crown jewels.

He proceeded to place several vouchers on top of some of the useless bits of paper that were on top of my coffee table. He looked at me, rummaged again, then produced some more.
"You get extra because you so handsome." Blushing, giggling, and shuffling uneasily further back into my chair, I thanked him, then shuffled forward again, because I didn't want to appear too relaxed. He stabbed a finger in the direction of my window. My eyes followed the direction of his finger.
"Nice seafood restaurant. Prawns, lobster, crab, tuna anything you like."

He seemed to be pointing at the 12th floor of the residence opposite.

"I love tuna," I remarked.

Slipping back towards the television, he plugged his cable in and the lights on the modem lit up. I was sitting by my computer which was on the coffee table. He lurched towards me. He plugged the other end of his cable in.

"You married?" he asked, flicking his eyes up to meet mine.
"No," I replied. He looked surprised, and then laughed again.
"Look at this," he remarked, touching my knee, which jerked away from him rapidly, "super fast modem." The modem was, indeed, super fast. He began to type in an internet address. Fortunately, it was the cable company's homepage. "Ah," he said again, with some surprise, and, tapping my knee with each word, remarked, "super fast extra rapid modem." He seemed to be playing his own game of adding as many pre-modifiers as possible to the noun "modem". I was about to join in with something like: "super duper fast extra rapid lightning modem" when he recommended a website to me that was, apparently, "full of great pictures."
"Fantastic," I remarked, but was not in enough control of my faculties to remember the address.
He gave me some forms to fill in. I had to cross my name out and start again because I had spelt it wrong, but I managed to regain my composure whilst continuing to engage in excrutiatingly polite conversation. He set about attaching his cable box to the tv.

Silence rested upon us.

I signed the final form and looked up to find him staring at me.
"How old is Mr Michael?" he asked.
"Thirty in a week."
"Ah!" he remarked, "you look so young!"

He propelled himself towards me again and demonstrated the remote control, showing me his channels. He passed the remote to me, and, for a split second, our hands touched.
"Sorry," I said.

Finally, when everything was done, he said,
"One thing I like you to do for me."

The curtains swayed in the breeze. A solitary ant made its way across the floor.

"Yes?" I whispered.
"Fill in customer satisfaction survey on this website." With that, he stood up, bade me farewell, laughed a couple of times, and left, uttering emphatically,
"So very handsome."

I filled in the form immediately. It was a drop down menu. "Too friendly" wasn't a category. Nor was "Far more eloquent and far less gruff than Telewest", so I settled for "Very good".

I wiped the sweat from my brow, poured myself a large glass of wine and settled down to watch the football.