If you are married and working, you'd appreciate this better. Excerpts from the book "The wind-up bird chronicle".

“I’m so sorry,” Kumiko said. “This one job wouldn’t go right. I thought of calling you, but things just kept getting in the way.”
“Never mind, it’s all right, don’t let it bother you,” I said as casually as I could. And in fact, I wasn’t feeling bad about it. I had had the same experience any number of times. Going out to work can be tough, not something sweet and peaceful like picking the prettiest rose in your gar den for your sick grandmother and spending the day with her, two streets away. Sometimes you have to do unpleasant things with unpleasant people, and the chance to call home never comes up. Thirty seconds is all it would take to say,
“I’ll be home late tonight,” and there are telephones everywhere, but you just can’t do it.