A COMEDY OF ERRORS, but all's well that ends well!

I happened to read a post written by a fellow blogger S recently. S is a friend of a friend, and I am an occasional reader of her blog. She had had a terrible experience at her dog's veternary surgeon's clinic, which was not very great on sterilisation of equipment, post operative care, or the consultancy.

Now I am not a dog-owner, not even really a dog-lover, but I could feel her anger and frustration at her not-so-great experience. Is there any way I could help this lady? I wondered. Sure I could.

I have a neighbour, a dog-owner, who I know is extremely fond of her dog, and considers her one of the family. I had this idea that I could ask this neighbour for information on where she gets medical treatment for her dog, and pass it on. Just reaching out to help. So I commented on her blog asking her for an email address where I could send her contact information of my neighbour's vet.

Now my neighbour's name is U, and I went to her name on the contacts list on my phone, and called her. Now bear with me as I go into the details of our conversation.

U: Oh Hi, Sandhya. How come you called?
Me: Hi, U. I hope this is not a bad time to call? If you are busy, I'll call again.
U: No, no. I'm not busy. Tell me.
Me: Actually U, I wanted some help. Actually I have a friend who has a dog, and she is very unhappy with her vet's service. She is looking for another vet. I wonder if you could tell me where you take your dog?
U: Where does she stay? So that I could refer you to a vet nearby her.
Me: I'm not sure exactly where she stays, but I think it is somewhere near J.......
U: Oh then she could go to any of my two vets. They will be nearby for her. One is on B..... Rd and the other in J........ They even come on home visits, you know. They are both very good, and answer all my questions. You know I have two dogs now, don't you?
(Here I was wondering about the fact that the vet comes all the way from there to our building, which is a good 15 kms away. But I told myself--maybe.)
Me: Oh, good. Can you give me their addresses and phone numbers, U?
U: I have them on my dog's card. Can I call you back?
Me: Ok.

She did call me back as promised and gave me details of the two vets. I thanked her for the help, said bye, and passed on the info to S. She got back to me, thanking me, since both of them were at a stone's throw for her. Then I proceeded with other pressing matters.

In the evening when I went downstairs, I met U and thanked her for the info, when she looked at me blankly, and said that either there was some mistake, or she has had selective amnesia! After probing the matter for some time, we both realised that I had called another friend, also called U, who is a blogger, and who co-incidentally is also a dog owner. I should have smelled a rat (or should I say dog?) when she mentioned that she had two dogs! Since my neighbour has only one. But then I had not met her for a few days, and it was not unlikely that she had got another in the meantime.

I was mortified. I had called up the other U after many weeks, and I had launched into asking a favour from her without so much as a hello-how-have-you-been? The culprit had been the contacts list on my phone. One was listed as just U, and the other as U-cell. I had not checked the number before dialling.

I called my blogger friend promptly the next day, and very sheepishly explained the whole comedy of errors to her. She happens to be a very gracious older lady, and was very understanding of the whole mistake. We had a hearty laugh over it. Thanks to my 'mistake', we did have a long conversation after a very long time.

I wrote to S, too, telling her all about it. Anyway, all's well that ends well. I had an excellent conversation with someone I admire but hadn't spoken to for a long time, made a new friend in the blogosphere, and consolidated my reputation as a scatterbrain bookworm in my building. Which is something I don't really mind- as there have been more positives to the whole issue!