Settle a bet I have with my wife.

Here's the background:

The phone rings during dinner.  My wife says to me, "You answer the
phone, it's your father." (Note: no caller ID or anything, just her
intuition)  I say, "No, you answer.  I'll bet you $5 it's not my
father."  So, my wife answers.  Right after she answers, I can
immediately tell that not only is it not my father, it's someone
completely unknown to my wife.  After she speaks with the caller, the
little woman hands the phone to me.  The caller informs me that she is
a nurse, that my father has been brought to the hospital, and he asked
her to call me.  The nurse then puts my father on the phone.  I speak
with dad, learn that he fell and cracked a few ribs, and will be okay.

Now the disagreement begins.  Who won the bet?

I say I did, in that while the nurse was clearly calling at my
father's request, she was by definition "the person who was calling"

My wife says she won, because the fact is the nurse was calling on
behalf of my father (i.e. his agent) and it is therefore the same as
if it was my father.

Your assignment is to weigh in on this question, and back it up with
irrefutable logic.

Dear asc165-ga;

Your question begs for opinion to I?ll offer you mine. I?ll take on
the task even at the risk of becoming a dead messenger (Can you see
where this is headed? Yes, I thought you might.). Let?s review:

Your bet was ?it's your father? vs. ?it's not my father?.

Now, the logical implication was that either your father would or
would not be calling. The terms of the wager never specifically
defined whether or not your father would have to physically dial the
phone in order for him to be considered the caller.

?it's your father (calling)? vs. ?it's not my father (calling)?

?it's your father (on the phone now)? vs. ?it's not my father (on the phone now)?.

Since the terms of the wager were not defined the common logic was
(presumably) that your father would, by no means, be on the other end
of the phone ? not initially, not eventually, nor at all.

In an effort to establish emergency communications with you, your
father commissioned a proxy to ?aid him? in physically initiating the
?his? call because he was unable to do so himself, or he certainly
would have.

The MERRIAM-WEBSTER DICTIONARY (a most highly regarded lexicon of
American English, as I?m sure you would agree) defines ?proxy? thusly:

Proxy: 
1 : the agency, function, or office of a deputy who acts as a
substitute for another
2 : authority or power to act for another?
3 : a person authorized to act for another
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=proxy&x=27&y=13

The fact remains that it was his desire to establish contact with you
using whatever means were necessary. The end result was indeed a call,
from ?your father? to ?you? with the brief and rather insignificant
assistance of a proxy. The fact that he did not actually dial the
phone is as irrelevant as it would be if he had called you long
distance using operator assistance. You would not receive a call from
the operator; you would be getting a call from ?him?. Furthermore, if
he had called you collect, even with the aid of an operator, the bill
at the end of the month would not list ?the operator? as the caller -
it would say that you got a call from ?your father?[ insert name here
].

Sorry bud. As bad as I hate to take sides against one of my own
kind?you lose. Enjoy your crow.

I don?t mean to pour salt in the wound but let me close by offering
this final bit of cogent reasoning: Had you admitted defeat the wager
would only have cost you five bucks. Your failure to do so will now
you eight.

I hope you find that my research exceeds your expectations. If you
have any questions about my research please post a clarification
request prior to rating the answer. Otherwise, I welcome your rating
and your final comments and I look forward to working with you again
in the near future. Thank you for bringing your question to us. It was
fun (for me, anyway).

Best regards;
Tutuzdad ? Google Answers Researcher

You lose.  You should've gotten up and answered.  The call was for
you.  The call was from your father trying to contact you, like
Tutuzdad said through an aid or proxy.
The "little woman" was obviously the bigger person in this case.

Pay up you sore loser!

Of course, perhaps you should more important things on your mind
considering the state of your father.

Interesting question and comments.

The wife, logically, loses. "It's your father..." was the wager. It
was not. It was a complete stranger. The fact that the complete
stranger was acting on behalf of the father is irrelevant as this was
not part of the wager. "It's your father trying to contact you..."
would have won the bet. This phrase does not stipulate that the father
is dialing the number or that the father is on the other end of the
phone.

"The fact remains that it was his desire to establish contact ..." as
mentioned by Tutuzdad was *not* the wager.

Replace "It's your father..." with "It's the bank manager...". In fact
it's the chief cashier calling. Who would you argue won the bet?

Anyhow, I hope your father is on the mend!

Sean