We stock this at work...

To my employers, it's Calcium Acetate. To me, it's phone sex where n e thing goes. We've got about 0898 of them on the shelf.

But on the subject of chat lines, I've spent most of today on the blower to a woman called Betty. She works for a pharmaceutical firm somewhere in the home counties, and I phoned her yesterday to say her injections were leaking all over my trousers. Her colleague Jamie, who clearly believes in the principle of free healthcare for all, told me they'd send us a credit note, apologised for the problem, and wished me a good weekend, after which I put the vital vials in a bag, addressed them to Betty, and went home.

After returning from lunch today, however, I had phone messages galore from the lovely Betty, who had apparently called, asked for me by name (note to self: never give your name to people on the phone) and requested that I call her back to talk about cardboard. Naturally I did, and we had a lovely chat about boxes, packaging, leakage, and the fact that her supervisor's on holiday and she has no idea what she's doing. I said I know how she feels. It was all very friendly, but I sensed she was doing her Miss Marple thing, and subtly trying to find out if I'd broken them myself whilst demonstrating my juggling skills in the dispensary. She eventually said she'd arrange for the vials to be collected (possibly for forensic analysis and fingerprinting), and that was the end of that. For about fifteen minutes.

A quarter of an hour later she phoned back to say she had a problem. I was tempted to do my Frank Spencer, and say "Ooh Betty, has the cat done a whoopsie in my beret?", but I changed my mind at the last moment and kept it professional. Anyway, she'd apparently phoned their couriers, who said they were only willing to pick up the injections if I put them back in the original box they (and their 496 non-leaking friends) had arrived in. Betty apologised, told me about her supervisor's holiday again, reminded me that she essentially knows nothing, moaned about courier companies, and said that she'd phone me again tomorrow. I'm not entirely sure why.

Anyhoo, it's not every day you get to root around in a giant recycling bin for a cardboard box the size of a fridge, in which to return four vials no bigger than a postage stamp. But hey, at least my work life is varied.

In other news, Radio 2 played 'non-stop oldies' for an hour this afternoon. I wouldn't mind, but one of them was a Deacon Blue song. You have no idea how depressing it is to find out that one of your favourite songs when you were 18 is now considered an oldie.

And talking of oldies, I'd just like to say hello to the dinosaur-hunter who e-mailed me this morning from Arizona. Apparently I'm big amongst paleontologists. I think they have a professional interest in Lisa.