My aunt had rented the third floor, a very nice attic, to Maysil, a woman from Canada who worked for the United States Childrens Bureau. (Which was later absorbed into some other agency.)
One Sunday afternoon I answered the phone. The operator had an international call for Maysil, who was not in the house. The operator tried to leave a message to have Maysil return the call. To where? I absolutely could not understand the operator, although I asked her several times to repeat. (Retrospectively, I should have asked her to spell the name.)
I was embarrassed at my failure to understand, but when Maysil returned, I did tell her that she needed to return a call. To where? I did the best I could. After all, what did I know about cities in Canada? I apologized for not understanding the operator, but I did the best I could. "It sounded," I explained to Maysil, "like a sneeze."
"Oh," she says, understanding perfectly, "Kitchener."
