Giving a ring to the wrong girl

My favorite AT&T advertisement shows a gray-haired man and womanhead to head. The copy reads, "Flirt with her again. Call the U.K.She was your childhood sweetheart. The girl you always planned tomarry. And even though so much has happened since you left London,since you left her side, you still carry a torch for her. Why notgive her a call and tell her?"

I came into the Dalinsky house and Marian was throwing ketchupbottles at Harry, who was ducking behind the sofa.

"What's up?" I asked.

Marian said, "He just called his childhood sweetheart inLondon."

"I can't believe it, Harry. I didn't know you had a childhoodsweetheart in England."

"I met her once at a pub," Harry said. "I wouldn't recognize herif I saw her now."

"Did you tell her on the phone that she was the girl you plannedto marry?"

"You have to tell women something like that to make them feelbetter."

Marian threw a jar of mustard at Harry.

"Harry, what on earth are you doing calling your childhoodsweetheart after being married for 47 years?"

"I was reading an advertisement in this magazine and it said youcould call the girl of your dreams for 64 cents. I figured I owedMathilda a tinkle. There is nothing between us anymore except a lotof wonderful memories."

The sugar bowl sailed across the room.

Harry said, "I told her it was her childhood sweetheartcalling and she said, `Hello Fred.' "

"English girls never get their men's first names right."

"Then," Harry continued, "I told her that I still carry a torchfor her."

"That must have pleased her," I said.

"I'm not sure because at that moment Marian took the palm treeout of the planter and shoved it down my pants."

Marian said, "The phone company has a nerve to suggest thathappily married husbands call their childhood sweethearts and tellthem they're still carrying a torch for them."

I said, "The phone company has been doing some weird thingslately. I wouldn't be surprised if they ran an ad soon suggestingthat divorced people call their ex-spouses up and yell at each other.Did the call cost you a lot?"

"It cost me more than you think. Marian got on the line andtold Mathilda what she had missed for the last 47 years. Marianalways knows how to ruin someone else's telephone call."

Art Buchwald's column is distributed by the Los Angeles TimesSyndicate.