A young girl who was writing a paper for school came to her father and asked: “Dad, what is the difference between anger and exasperation?”
The father replied: “It is mostly a matter of degree. Let me show you what I mean.”
With that the father went to the telephone and dialed a number at random. To the man who answered the phone, he said: “Hello, is Melvin there?”
The man answered: “There is no one living here named Melvin. Why don’t you learn to look up numbers before you dial.”
“See,” said the father to his daughter. “That man was not a bit happy with our call. He was probably very busy with something and we annoyed him. Now watch.”
The father dialed the number again. “Hello, is Melvin there?” asked the father.
“Now look here!” came the heated reply. “You just called this number and I told you that there is no Melvin here! You’ve got a lot of guts calling again!”
The receiver slammed down hard. The father turned to his daughter and said: “You see, that was anger. Now I’ll show you what exasperation means.”
He dialed the same number, and when a violent voice roared: “Hello!”
The father calmly said: “Hello, this is Melvin. Have there been any calls for me?”