A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

That explains why the lady I had to deal with at our merchant account provider (the company that processes our credit card sales) couldn’t help me much today.

The conversation went something like this . . .

Her: “Hello, tech support. How may I help you?”

Me: “Hi. My screen on my credit card terminal is blank.”

Her: “Sir, what does the screen on your terminal say?”

Me: “Nothing. It is blank.”

Her: “That is not possible.”

Me: “It really is blank. Technically it is green, but there is nothing appearing on it besides green.”

Her: “That is not possible.”

Me: “Why isn’t that possible?”

Her: “Because I’ve told you what to do and, if you’d had done it, the screen would be displaying ‘*ZP.'”

Me: “You’ve not told me to do anything. All I did was call you to report a problem and you answered the phone asking me what my screen was displaying. I told you.”

Her: “If you’d done what I told you, the screen would display ‘*ZP’ and we could continue.”

Me: “What does ‘*ZP’ mean?”

Her: “It is the procedure code for a Hypercom terminal.”

Me: “I’ve got a Verifone terminal.”

Her: “That’s not possible.”

At that point I hug up . . .