[if nobody would object, I would stop. 10.]

If nobody would object, I would stop answering the phone. You could leave a
message, I'd get back to you if you said what was on your mind and didn't
just leave an order to call back as soon as possible.

I'd fix things silently, and in the middle of the night. I'd make a good
gnome or brownie, working when the workshop is locked up for the night, gone
by morning when the door is unlocked, leaving something shiny and finished
where only raw materials had been the night before.

I'd love to show up when unexpected, and leave things a bit nicer than I
found them.

People object to that, somehow. It's amusing how often they just want to
have someone to talk to, and they won't really think about anything unless
someone is there holding their hand the whole way.

It's sad, really, that it's come to this. Nobody intends to understand,
nobody intends to even try. It's just a little piece of magic, the magic
flows in through one cord and comes bursting out of the screen. And if you
type words into it, other people will type words back that sometimes even
have something to do with what you said.

Of course, the fastest way to get a question answered isn't to ask the
question but to post the wrong answer for all to see, in some place public.
Every show-off that can get their hands on a keyboard will get going as
quick as they can, happy to correct the wrong-headedness they see. Sometimes
they're just as wrong and that's when the nomex underwear come in. Flames
erupt and there's an argument. Not the civil, both listening kind, but the
who-can-be-more-right take-no-prisoners argument that's only over when
someone mentions how very much that sounds like the sort of idea that Hitler
would have had in the situation.