MR Pang was near the end of his tether. He had decided to divorce his wife because she couldn't, or wouldn't, shake her gambling habit. But it wouldn't end there, he sighed, because she still owed a pile of money that would have to come from him.
About 10 minutes later, it was an anonymous housewife doing the sighing. She missed the early days of sweetness and light when she fell in love with her husband, and was desperate to rekindle the flames of romance.
She sounded as lost and lonely as a young girl. A bit like the nine-year-old schoolgirl who said all she wanted to do was stay at home and listen to sad songs because her parents either left her home alone while they went out at night to study, or cold-shouldered her when they were back.
The one thing they had in common was that all three will have gone to bed that night if not happier, then at least closer to understanding their problems. And all three had a straight-faced, pony-tailed young man to thank for their peace of mind.
That young man is Gary Ngan, the host of Impulse Strikes Again - one of Commercial Radio and Hong Kong's most popular shows - and probably the closest thing the territory has to an agony uncle.
From Monday to Saturday, between 7 pm and 11 pm on the Chinese channel, Ngan takes his place behind a microphone in a basement studio and works his magic. Impulse Strikes Again is an unusual blend of phone-in show and easy listening, bound together by the smoothest, most listener-friendly voice in Hong Kong radio (an American friend, who didn't speak a word of Cantonese, made a point of tuning in because she maintained one 'uh huh' from Ngan made her knees tremble).