Sheila Charles THE ADDRESS
A friend was admitted to hospital.
I immediately wrote out a card.
I just had to address the envelope –
That shouldn’t be too hard.
I got as far as Dunedin Hospital
But I could not remember the street.
To be honest, I should know it
But I had to admit defeat.
So I consulted the phone book.
Well, actually there are now two,
The yellow pages and the white pages.
I rarely use either. Sad but true.
Firstly I looked up hospital.
In one, a list appeared
But Dunedin Hospital wasn’t there
Which I thought was rather weird!
The yellow book told me the info
Was in the white book then
The white book said look in the yellow book.
I looked in both once again.
I seem to recall it used to be
At the front of the old book, so,
I looked in the front of both
But was the address there? No.
Finally I decided to give
My old friend Google a go!
And there it was – Great King Street,
Number 201. Yes.
I finished addressing the envelope
And then I’d no stamp, I have to confess.
(I supposed I could have rung C.A.B.
As they too would know, wouldn’t they,
Where Dunedin Hospital was?
Normally I would too, by the way.)
Then another thought struck me –
Why am I lacking in common sense?
Dunedin Hospital would have been sufficient.
I could get a degree in being dense!
illustration by ume-nori
