(Dialogue)
It was a brilliantly sunny day at the beginning of spring, one of the warmest of the budding season. I was in the tiny, galley-style kitchen in the back of my apartment, where, somehow, the natural light never seemed to reach. I quickly pulled sliced ham, mayo, mustard and cheese from the fridge, with the goal of making a sandwich to eat in the living room, where warm golden light was pouring through the windows.
Just as I was slathering mustard on a slice of bread, the phone rang. Absentmindedly, I answered the corded phone on the wall in the kitchen.
“Hello?” I already sounded annoyed. Whoever this was, they were delaying my escape from the dingy confines of my kitchen.
“Hello, is Ms. Rah-fuze there, please?” A young woman.
“It’s pronounced Ray-fuse. This is Amanda.” My annoyance grew - obviously, it was a telemarketer.
“Hi, I’m Denise and I’m calling on behalf of Aliant today. We’re just calling our current customers to let them know about some new products available to them.”
I smiled sardonically into the phone. I knew what was coming – only a few weeks before I had been making this same call, over and over again. I felt for Denise, and decided to be nice. Besides, if I was friendly maybe she would take my inevitable ‘no’ more easily. “How are you today, Denise?” I asked.
“Good, thank you.” I could hear her smiling on the other end. “And you?”
“Good, thanks. Just making some lunch.” I forced a more genuine smile into my words as I clamped the receiver between my ear and shoulder so I could return to constructing my sandwich.
“Oooh, anything good?” she asked, as though we were old friends.
“Nah, just a sandwich. But I can’t wait to go and eat it in the sun.” I prayed she would take the hint.
She didn’t.
“Oh, I know! Isn’t it a gorgeous today? I wish I could be out there enjoying it instead of inside. But, we all gotta pay the bills.” Her chuckle was like a shrug.
“Yeah, I know all about that, for sure,” I commiserated. Our conversation was actually pleasant, and I was even feeling less annoyed. Sure, my sandwich was progressing slower than I’d liked, but I was sure that once she finally got to her pitch, she would let me go without rebuttal.
I had held her off as long as I could and she threw her first pitch: “So, we have some newer call packages than the one you currently have. You can get all of our call features, including caller ID and call waiting, and it will only cost you about a dollar more a month. I’ll just go ahead and sign you up for that?” It was barely a question. The presumptuousness of this one statement thinly disguised as a request instantly killed all good will we had built together. ‘Be nice,” I reminded myself. ‘You know the pressure she’s under for quotas...’
“I would rather you didn’t,” I answered curtly. “I don’t have a caller ID phone, and I think call waiting is rude.”
“Oh, you’re sure?” Her tone of voice changed, from ‘best friend and confidante’ to ‘aggressive used-car salesman.’ “They can be really convenient, and at only twelve dollars more a year it’s a pretty good value. You could even just try them out for a month or two - “
“No, thank you,” I said firmly, my tone of voice changing, too, from ‘friend’ to ‘annoyed.’ I expected her to thank me and let me go.
She didn’t.
“Okay. But, oh!, I see you’re in a Killam building. You are one of the few people in Halifax currently eligible for Aliant TV.” The regained cheeriness in her voice was obviously forced. “Who’s your current cable provider?”
“I don’t have a cable provider. I have bunny-ears on top of my plasma.”
“Really?” she asked incredulously.
“Yeah.”
“Well, then you are in the perfect position to try out Aliant TV - ”
“I don’t have a cable provider because I don’t want cable.” My somewhat aggressive reply was directed down at my half-made sandwich.
“But Aliant TV offers - ”
“No, I am not interested.”
“But - ”
I lost what meagre patience I had been able to hold onto. My strategy of being nice had clearly backfired - she apparently had taken it as a sign of weakness. Whatever feeling of sorority I had had with her finished its transformation into anger with that one ‘but.’
“Are you at Minacs?” I demanded.
There was a palpable hesitation on the line. I knew that she was not allowed to reveal if she was.
“Perhaps,” she says, and my anger was paralleled in her voice.
“Well, perhaps I worked there up until a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps I was doing the exact same thing as you. And perhaps I know that you are not supposed to rebut me because I am a current customer. Perhaps Aliant doesn’t want to piss off their loyal customers.”
“Well, because you’re such a loyal customer - ” those two words dripping sarcasm - “we thought you’d be interested in some of our great offers.”
“You know what? I think - no, I’m sure - that when I move I will be ending my association with Aliant. Because of this call. I will be switching to Eastlink.” There was an angry tone of finality in my voice.
Apparently, she had no reply to my outburst, and she indignantly rattled off the standard call closing which I knew by rote. Thankful I was on the corded phone and not the cordless, I banged the receiver into the cradle just as she was thanking me for choosing Aliant.
With a sigh and a smile, I went back to my sandwich. Soon, I would be sitting in the sun.
March 31, 2009
Interview With Darwin
(An Influential Person)
I know that ritual is important to humans. Individuals have them, to create their sense of self. Individuals participate in group rituals to extend that sense of self into a sense of community. Sure, I get it.
But there are still lots of rituals I can’t stand - the bar scene, marriage, dressing to the current fashion - and so opt out whenever possible. There is one I hate with a passion, however, and I can’t escape it: the new-class introduction.
Every course in the public relations program begins with this ritual. The standard questions: What’s your name? Where are you from? What’s your educational background? And the one I dread, in all its hideous permutations: Why are you in public relations? Inevitably, this question makes a liar out of me.
My path to public relations begins with me sitting in Dr. Barkow’s tiny office, sweating uncontrollably. I power-walked all the way here, and was still a few minutes late. Now I am sitting, but my body has gone into overdrive and I can’t stop it. My corpulent professor is staring at me from across his desk. The room is cramped, and I find myself staring at school photographs of his ugly children. I try to distract my eyes with the line of a creeping plant that has grown around the perimeter of the room.
“So, have you thought about what you want to do when you’re done your B.A.?” He is sitting back in his chair, his hands folded over the head of his hand-carved cane. He is the archetype of “professor” and takes great pleasure in pointing out how similar he looks to Darwin. His diabetes makes him drowsy in the afternoon, and his cloudy, pale blue eyes are heavily hooded. He looks as though just asking the question has nearly exhausted him.
“Ahhhh, no.” I reply weakly. I have had a great respect for this man since taking Food and Culture in my second year at university. That class was the catalyst for me switching degree programs, from journalism to social anthropology. Over the past two years, I have taken several other courses taught by him, enjoying his comfortable cynicism and staunchly non-Marxist ideology. Sitting alone with him now, for the first time, I can feel the weight of his attention. It is nearly crushing.
He nods, as if he is expecting this. Or, perhaps, he is drowsing a little. Suddenly, he leans forward. “You know, you have to have a really great GPA to get into the Masters program here. It’s not easy.” He looks down on me, more with his voice than with his stature.
“I was thinking about going back to journalism, doing the eight-month program at King’s,” I venture. His eyes make me feel like I am stepping onto thin ice.
“Journalism?” I cannot tell if it is a grunt or a laugh. He releases one chubby hand from the top of his cane and scratches around in his white beard, looking thoughtfully over my shoulder.
“How will you get a job in journalism? It’s an over-crowded market.” He speaks as though he is an authority on the subject. I can imagine him at home with his wife, looking over her shoulder as she completes the same chores she has been doing for the past thirty years, him telling her everything she is doing wrong. Perhaps it’s his striking resemblance to Darwin, perhaps it is the cane, but he seems to exude a sense of authority no matter where he is, or what he does. People defer to him automatically.
I scramble. I hope he can’t see it, as I try to mask it with cocky confidence. “I’m confident I will stand out in the crowd.”
He closes his eyes as he juts out his chin non-committedly. Always shrewd, he will neither confirm nor deny.
I leave the office feeling deflated. A person I respect and look up to has just insinuated that I am not good enough for my top two job options. And that is, truly, how I ended up in P.R. and not journalism or social anthropology. Of course, I can never say that in class. So, in order to be a good little ritual participant, I just have to lie.
Whew.
It feels really good to clear the air.
Author’s note: Looking back on this episode now, I am actually pretty sure he was trying to recruit me to the Graduate program. But my own self-doubt led me to interpret his words in this way. Perhaps I will look into that program after all...
I know that ritual is important to humans. Individuals have them, to create their sense of self. Individuals participate in group rituals to extend that sense of self into a sense of community. Sure, I get it.
But there are still lots of rituals I can’t stand - the bar scene, marriage, dressing to the current fashion - and so opt out whenever possible. There is one I hate with a passion, however, and I can’t escape it: the new-class introduction.
Every course in the public relations program begins with this ritual. The standard questions: What’s your name? Where are you from? What’s your educational background? And the one I dread, in all its hideous permutations: Why are you in public relations? Inevitably, this question makes a liar out of me.
My path to public relations begins with me sitting in Dr. Barkow’s tiny office, sweating uncontrollably. I power-walked all the way here, and was still a few minutes late. Now I am sitting, but my body has gone into overdrive and I can’t stop it. My corpulent professor is staring at me from across his desk. The room is cramped, and I find myself staring at school photographs of his ugly children. I try to distract my eyes with the line of a creeping plant that has grown around the perimeter of the room.
“So, have you thought about what you want to do when you’re done your B.A.?” He is sitting back in his chair, his hands folded over the head of his hand-carved cane. He is the archetype of “professor” and takes great pleasure in pointing out how similar he looks to Darwin. His diabetes makes him drowsy in the afternoon, and his cloudy, pale blue eyes are heavily hooded. He looks as though just asking the question has nearly exhausted him.
“Ahhhh, no.” I reply weakly. I have had a great respect for this man since taking Food and Culture in my second year at university. That class was the catalyst for me switching degree programs, from journalism to social anthropology. Over the past two years, I have taken several other courses taught by him, enjoying his comfortable cynicism and staunchly non-Marxist ideology. Sitting alone with him now, for the first time, I can feel the weight of his attention. It is nearly crushing.
He nods, as if he is expecting this. Or, perhaps, he is drowsing a little. Suddenly, he leans forward. “You know, you have to have a really great GPA to get into the Masters program here. It’s not easy.” He looks down on me, more with his voice than with his stature.
“I was thinking about going back to journalism, doing the eight-month program at King’s,” I venture. His eyes make me feel like I am stepping onto thin ice.
“Journalism?” I cannot tell if it is a grunt or a laugh. He releases one chubby hand from the top of his cane and scratches around in his white beard, looking thoughtfully over my shoulder.
“How will you get a job in journalism? It’s an over-crowded market.” He speaks as though he is an authority on the subject. I can imagine him at home with his wife, looking over her shoulder as she completes the same chores she has been doing for the past thirty years, him telling her everything she is doing wrong. Perhaps it’s his striking resemblance to Darwin, perhaps it is the cane, but he seems to exude a sense of authority no matter where he is, or what he does. People defer to him automatically.
I scramble. I hope he can’t see it, as I try to mask it with cocky confidence. “I’m confident I will stand out in the crowd.”
He closes his eyes as he juts out his chin non-committedly. Always shrewd, he will neither confirm nor deny.
I leave the office feeling deflated. A person I respect and look up to has just insinuated that I am not good enough for my top two job options. And that is, truly, how I ended up in P.R. and not journalism or social anthropology. Of course, I can never say that in class. So, in order to be a good little ritual participant, I just have to lie.
Whew.
It feels really good to clear the air.
Author’s note: Looking back on this episode now, I am actually pretty sure he was trying to recruit me to the Graduate program. But my own self-doubt led me to interpret his words in this way. Perhaps I will look into that program after all...
My Dry Womb
(Human Environment)
It’s warm and muffled in here. The air is stale and dark, and dirty second-hand light seeps through the old glass windows that compose the majority of the door.
I am huddled under one of the bottom shelves, using some towels and forgotten linens as bedding. I reach up and run my tiny fingers along the rough hewn wood of the shelf, risking splinters, massaging the dry, loose fibers. They become soft and pliable from the oil on my fingers. The shelves emanate the slow smell of their deterioration, filling the back of my throat with their flavor. The linens of my nest smell like the shelves, their aroma mingling with the sweet smell of fabric softener coating the towels.
I look up and around the small linen closet, sensing more than actually seeing the shelves. They line two of the walls from a foot or two above the cracked and peeling linoleum floor to a foot from the asbestos-filled ceiling. An ironing board stands against the shelfless wall across from me. The shelves are filled with clean towels and sheets, and clothes awaiting the restorative touch of my mother. A small teddy bear, clad in purple overalls, silently spills his life blood of batten on a shelf directly above me. Even though I cannot see him from my nest, he has been here for quite some time. Once beloved but now forgotten, he sits patiently, perhaps praying for death, perhaps praying for my brother to remember and reclaim him.
The small room, its location within the bathroom, and its contents all conspire to stifle outside noises. I can hear my family moving about the house, but as if they are on another plane of existence. And to me, in this moment, they are. The only real sounds come from me – my breathing, humming and orations to invisible spectators. Eventually, my mouth quiets but my mind does not. I shift, making the floor creak, as my mind creaks under the weight of my thoughts. My reverie makes me sleepy and I sink deeper into the fabrics of my dry womb.
Suddenly, there is a cascade of falling water behind the wood panelling of the wall beside me and I awake with a start, momentarily disorientated, feeling the weightless vertigo of going over a waterfall. The water sounds as if it is actually pouring between the walls, uncontained by the lead pipes that snake their way throughout our house. The door groans quietly on its sticky hinges and my Mom pokes her head in behind me.
“Amanda?” I am not aware of there having been a spell until it is broken by her voice.
“Yeah,” I reply drowsily.
She laughs. “Come on, it’s time for dinner.”
I crawl out from my little nest, rubbing my eyes.
“I don’t understand why you like this place.” She grins to herself the way adults do when confronted by the odd habits of children. I squint my eyes against the assault of the unfiltered light as I emerge into the bathroom. I can’t tell her why I like this place, either, but her grin tells me that’s okay.
It’s warm and muffled in here. The air is stale and dark, and dirty second-hand light seeps through the old glass windows that compose the majority of the door.
I am huddled under one of the bottom shelves, using some towels and forgotten linens as bedding. I reach up and run my tiny fingers along the rough hewn wood of the shelf, risking splinters, massaging the dry, loose fibers. They become soft and pliable from the oil on my fingers. The shelves emanate the slow smell of their deterioration, filling the back of my throat with their flavor. The linens of my nest smell like the shelves, their aroma mingling with the sweet smell of fabric softener coating the towels.
I look up and around the small linen closet, sensing more than actually seeing the shelves. They line two of the walls from a foot or two above the cracked and peeling linoleum floor to a foot from the asbestos-filled ceiling. An ironing board stands against the shelfless wall across from me. The shelves are filled with clean towels and sheets, and clothes awaiting the restorative touch of my mother. A small teddy bear, clad in purple overalls, silently spills his life blood of batten on a shelf directly above me. Even though I cannot see him from my nest, he has been here for quite some time. Once beloved but now forgotten, he sits patiently, perhaps praying for death, perhaps praying for my brother to remember and reclaim him.
The small room, its location within the bathroom, and its contents all conspire to stifle outside noises. I can hear my family moving about the house, but as if they are on another plane of existence. And to me, in this moment, they are. The only real sounds come from me – my breathing, humming and orations to invisible spectators. Eventually, my mouth quiets but my mind does not. I shift, making the floor creak, as my mind creaks under the weight of my thoughts. My reverie makes me sleepy and I sink deeper into the fabrics of my dry womb.
Suddenly, there is a cascade of falling water behind the wood panelling of the wall beside me and I awake with a start, momentarily disorientated, feeling the weightless vertigo of going over a waterfall. The water sounds as if it is actually pouring between the walls, uncontained by the lead pipes that snake their way throughout our house. The door groans quietly on its sticky hinges and my Mom pokes her head in behind me.
“Amanda?” I am not aware of there having been a spell until it is broken by her voice.
“Yeah,” I reply drowsily.
She laughs. “Come on, it’s time for dinner.”
I crawl out from my little nest, rubbing my eyes.
“I don’t understand why you like this place.” She grins to herself the way adults do when confronted by the odd habits of children. I squint my eyes against the assault of the unfiltered light as I emerge into the bathroom. I can’t tell her why I like this place, either, but her grin tells me that’s okay.
Let Me Take You to My Special Place
(Natural Environment)
My flight instinct has always been stronger than my fight.
Just as we float above the modest red house that served as my childhood home, here I come running out the door now, escaping some imagined slight. At the age of seven I was even more touchy than I am now, if you can believe that.
Let’s fly along above me, see what childhood salve I may place on my wounded ego. Can you hear the crazy rhythm of my wrenched heart, beating in time with the fierce pumping of my short, skinny legs as I run across our backyard? Past the garage I go, easily jumping the drainage ditch running between the backyard and field beyond. Blind emotion propels me over the open space, preventing the fatal hesitation that would sometimes trip me just before leaving the earth during calmer flights.
I hit the ground running on the other side, but I disappear in the long, long grass. My maniacal path is revealed to us, dear reader, by the movement of the grass. If you concentrate, you can feel the stalks whipping my shins and the fuzzy heads caressing my cheeks. Can you see the furry seeds stuck in the rivulets of tears on my red and puffing cheeks?
Oh, the grass has stopped moving. That’s me, right there, standing in front of that stand of three gnarled apple trees. What, dear reader? You couldn’t tell those were trees? Yes, from here it is difficult to see that, as the trees are draped with an ivy veil. I’m not sure what that plant is, but it has grown completely over the trees, creating a natural thatch house.
I’ve paused there, dear reader, to contemplate the large, six-point leaves. I reach out a small hand like a trembling, featherless bird to stroke the stiff, fine hairs on the velvety front of one of the leaves. Notice how my hand stops quaking as I do so, the nerves of my fingertips comparing the texture to my Dad’s Sunday whiskers.
Now I’m crawling inside the dome, carefully navigating a path through the thicket. I don’t want to rip the leaves or break their life-line vines. But I cannot resist the feeling of all those rough hairs and leathery leaf backs caressing the soft skin of my youthful body. A vine twines itself around my wrist, a quick and leathery noose closing around the delicate bone. I gently release myself and I disappear from our voyeuristic gaze. We must also enter the dome now, dear reader, but don’t be afraid.
See? It’s really quite pleasant in here. Small birds twitter around us, the enclosing leaves magnifying their tiny voices. The filtered sunlight imitates light as seen through water, the dapples illuminating parts of my seven-year old self as I twist and climb one of the old trees. I reach a rudimentary tree house, really just three rotting boards nailed in the junction of the massive, low-hanging branches with the wide trunk. The boards have been here so long, the tree has began to grow around them. Just as the ivy has grown into the trees. Just as the whole soothing mess has grown into me.
Take a deep breath with me, dear reader. The smell of damp earth, the sweet aroma of fading rot surround us. Can you taste them on the back of your throat as I do? I absorb these smells, plucking a premature apple, small, dark green and hard, from a branch above my head. The crunch disturbs the little birds’ song. Surely you can taste it, too, sweet and sour and forbidden. A secret gift, staining my hands with its sticky, clear blood like a sacrifice.
It’s life is not lost in vain. I am soothed by the taste, by the sweet aroma. Watch as I savour it as though it is the last apple on earth.
“Aaaa maaaannnnn daaaaaa!” I felt you jump, ever so slightly, at the deep baritone of my father’s voice, dear reader. Alas, it is time I take you somewhere, sometime else, as this moment is over. We’re rising through the top of the thicket, all we can see is bark and then leaves, and now we’re in the bright sunshine again. Let’s fly together, dear reader, and leave seven-year old Amanda as she begins her short - yet so long - journey home.
My flight instinct has always been stronger than my fight.
Just as we float above the modest red house that served as my childhood home, here I come running out the door now, escaping some imagined slight. At the age of seven I was even more touchy than I am now, if you can believe that.
Let’s fly along above me, see what childhood salve I may place on my wounded ego. Can you hear the crazy rhythm of my wrenched heart, beating in time with the fierce pumping of my short, skinny legs as I run across our backyard? Past the garage I go, easily jumping the drainage ditch running between the backyard and field beyond. Blind emotion propels me over the open space, preventing the fatal hesitation that would sometimes trip me just before leaving the earth during calmer flights.
I hit the ground running on the other side, but I disappear in the long, long grass. My maniacal path is revealed to us, dear reader, by the movement of the grass. If you concentrate, you can feel the stalks whipping my shins and the fuzzy heads caressing my cheeks. Can you see the furry seeds stuck in the rivulets of tears on my red and puffing cheeks?
Oh, the grass has stopped moving. That’s me, right there, standing in front of that stand of three gnarled apple trees. What, dear reader? You couldn’t tell those were trees? Yes, from here it is difficult to see that, as the trees are draped with an ivy veil. I’m not sure what that plant is, but it has grown completely over the trees, creating a natural thatch house.
I’ve paused there, dear reader, to contemplate the large, six-point leaves. I reach out a small hand like a trembling, featherless bird to stroke the stiff, fine hairs on the velvety front of one of the leaves. Notice how my hand stops quaking as I do so, the nerves of my fingertips comparing the texture to my Dad’s Sunday whiskers.
Now I’m crawling inside the dome, carefully navigating a path through the thicket. I don’t want to rip the leaves or break their life-line vines. But I cannot resist the feeling of all those rough hairs and leathery leaf backs caressing the soft skin of my youthful body. A vine twines itself around my wrist, a quick and leathery noose closing around the delicate bone. I gently release myself and I disappear from our voyeuristic gaze. We must also enter the dome now, dear reader, but don’t be afraid.
See? It’s really quite pleasant in here. Small birds twitter around us, the enclosing leaves magnifying their tiny voices. The filtered sunlight imitates light as seen through water, the dapples illuminating parts of my seven-year old self as I twist and climb one of the old trees. I reach a rudimentary tree house, really just three rotting boards nailed in the junction of the massive, low-hanging branches with the wide trunk. The boards have been here so long, the tree has began to grow around them. Just as the ivy has grown into the trees. Just as the whole soothing mess has grown into me.
Take a deep breath with me, dear reader. The smell of damp earth, the sweet aroma of fading rot surround us. Can you taste them on the back of your throat as I do? I absorb these smells, plucking a premature apple, small, dark green and hard, from a branch above my head. The crunch disturbs the little birds’ song. Surely you can taste it, too, sweet and sour and forbidden. A secret gift, staining my hands with its sticky, clear blood like a sacrifice.
It’s life is not lost in vain. I am soothed by the taste, by the sweet aroma. Watch as I savour it as though it is the last apple on earth.
“Aaaa maaaannnnn daaaaaa!” I felt you jump, ever so slightly, at the deep baritone of my father’s voice, dear reader. Alas, it is time I take you somewhere, sometime else, as this moment is over. We’re rising through the top of the thicket, all we can see is bark and then leaves, and now we’re in the bright sunshine again. Let’s fly together, dear reader, and leave seven-year old Amanda as she begins her short - yet so long - journey home.
January 12, 2009
Just Another Day on the Job
I sift through the mail, quickly shuffling through the stack of envelopes, dropping the junk mail unceremoniously into the garbage can in front of me. I hesitate for half a second as the Capital One logo reveals itself from beneath my credit card bill, then down it goes, floating to join its unwanted brethren on the top of the heap. With that name, memories begin to lackadaisically swirl at the back of my mind. As I wait for the elevator up to my floor, I allow one in particular to come to the fore, and before I know it I am sitting in a cheap office chair, stained and stiff like an old man, literally tethered to the computer I am sitting in front of. There are a few hundred people, likewise tethered, sitting in the large open room around me. The buzz of their voices is a steady hum, rising and falling as if we have all begun to inflect our scripts in exactly the same way. Workstations line the walls and crop up out of the industrial carpet like metal islands. I am the lone castaway at my island.
The night is long with no one to sit next to, especially since it is nearing the end of the month and our call list is almost exhausted. But my contraband book is more than enough company, and I have put a hundred pages behind me since I began my shift.
There is a mechanical tone in my ear, of the kind researchers use to condition animals. I lay my book pages-down in my lap. Orange on black, the name on my screen is ROBERT SMITH.
“Hello?” A woman.
“Hello,” I smile, so that it is reflected in my voice. If I sound as bored as I feel the jig will be up, and I don’t feel like sparring with this gatekeeper. Sure, verbally fighting with the customers can be a fun way to make the night go faster, but I am in no mood tonight. Just want to be rejected and released back to my book.
“Is Mr. Robert Smith there please?”
“No, he’s out, can I take a message?” the woman asks. Her voice is non-committal.
“No, that’s alright, I can call back at another time.” Almost out! As long as she doesn’t…
“Who is this? Why are you calling?” It sounds as though all of her attention is now on me.
“My name is Amanda, and I am calling this evening on behalf of Capital One. We’ll try Mr. Smith at another time. Thanks for your time.” I pause, then begin the standard disclaimer, which is necessary when I identify myself and/or Capital One.
“Hold on a second, why are you calling him?” she is like a beagle on the scent now. Suddenly, she is very interested. “Does he owe you money?”
“Not that I know of.” She exhales deeply, almost sighing, and her disappointment causes tension over the wires. “We’re calling today to offer him a special offer on a new credit card, but we can call back at another time so he doesn’t miss his chance.” I add that last part ironically, for my own amusement - the credit cards were never a ‘good deal.’ “Thanks again for your time.” Again, I pause then begin the disclaimer.
“Hold on!” she is now barking like a beagle, too. There is a perceptible change. “You’re a telemarketer?”
I furrow my brows and lift the left corner of my mouth. This wasn’t obvious? “Yes.”
“You take Robert off that list.” It is a short and definitive demand.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but that’s not possible. Only Mr. Smith can request to have his name removed.”
“You have to remove his name.” She is losing control and her teeth sound clenched.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that at this time.”
“I know.” She spits over the phone. Her voice indicates white knuckles and wide eyes. “I know what you and your kind are like.”
I am not sure what she means, and can’t make a split decision – it would be fun to instigate her further, but if someone is listening I’ll get into trouble. She makes the decision for me – she doesn’t wait for me to say anything.
“My husband ran away with a telemarketer like you, and if he ever comes back he is never” - that last word is nearly lost inside a deep throated growl - “going to speak with you. Got it?!” She is uninhibitedly screaming now, and I begin to choke back uninhibited laughter. I take a gulp of air.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me, you little bitch! Take him off your list!” She has transformed from beagle to banshee.
Then: dial tone. I mutter the disclaimer as fast as I can, the dial tone humming along. I take my headset off. I roll the phone receiver back into its cradle, silencing the dial tone. I push my keyboard towards the monitor at the back of my station and replace it with my folded arms, which I place my face between. I release the laughter I thought may kill me, until my sides hurt. Then I sit up, code the call and restore my tele-connections.
The elevator doors open, and I am still chuckling as I step off the elevator, leaving the memory behind me like a whisp.
The night is long with no one to sit next to, especially since it is nearing the end of the month and our call list is almost exhausted. But my contraband book is more than enough company, and I have put a hundred pages behind me since I began my shift.
There is a mechanical tone in my ear, of the kind researchers use to condition animals. I lay my book pages-down in my lap. Orange on black, the name on my screen is ROBERT SMITH.
“Hello?” A woman.
“Hello,” I smile, so that it is reflected in my voice. If I sound as bored as I feel the jig will be up, and I don’t feel like sparring with this gatekeeper. Sure, verbally fighting with the customers can be a fun way to make the night go faster, but I am in no mood tonight. Just want to be rejected and released back to my book.
“Is Mr. Robert Smith there please?”
“No, he’s out, can I take a message?” the woman asks. Her voice is non-committal.
“No, that’s alright, I can call back at another time.” Almost out! As long as she doesn’t…
“Who is this? Why are you calling?” It sounds as though all of her attention is now on me.
“My name is Amanda, and I am calling this evening on behalf of Capital One. We’ll try Mr. Smith at another time. Thanks for your time.” I pause, then begin the standard disclaimer, which is necessary when I identify myself and/or Capital One.
“Hold on a second, why are you calling him?” she is like a beagle on the scent now. Suddenly, she is very interested. “Does he owe you money?”
“Not that I know of.” She exhales deeply, almost sighing, and her disappointment causes tension over the wires. “We’re calling today to offer him a special offer on a new credit card, but we can call back at another time so he doesn’t miss his chance.” I add that last part ironically, for my own amusement - the credit cards were never a ‘good deal.’ “Thanks again for your time.” Again, I pause then begin the disclaimer.
“Hold on!” she is now barking like a beagle, too. There is a perceptible change. “You’re a telemarketer?”
I furrow my brows and lift the left corner of my mouth. This wasn’t obvious? “Yes.”
“You take Robert off that list.” It is a short and definitive demand.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but that’s not possible. Only Mr. Smith can request to have his name removed.”
“You have to remove his name.” She is losing control and her teeth sound clenched.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that at this time.”
“I know.” She spits over the phone. Her voice indicates white knuckles and wide eyes. “I know what you and your kind are like.”
I am not sure what she means, and can’t make a split decision – it would be fun to instigate her further, but if someone is listening I’ll get into trouble. She makes the decision for me – she doesn’t wait for me to say anything.
“My husband ran away with a telemarketer like you, and if he ever comes back he is never” - that last word is nearly lost inside a deep throated growl - “going to speak with you. Got it?!” She is uninhibitedly screaming now, and I begin to choke back uninhibited laughter. I take a gulp of air.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me, you little bitch! Take him off your list!” She has transformed from beagle to banshee.
Then: dial tone. I mutter the disclaimer as fast as I can, the dial tone humming along. I take my headset off. I roll the phone receiver back into its cradle, silencing the dial tone. I push my keyboard towards the monitor at the back of my station and replace it with my folded arms, which I place my face between. I release the laughter I thought may kill me, until my sides hurt. Then I sit up, code the call and restore my tele-connections.
The elevator doors open, and I am still chuckling as I step off the elevator, leaving the memory behind me like a whisp.
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