Hell's a-Poppin'

The phone rang.
I frowned at it, because I wasn't expecting a call. Besides, I was very, very busy: I was sitting on the couch, watching television and drinking a bourbon & Coke.

It rang again. Persistent little cuss.

I'm not sure why I answered it the way I did-- maybe it was the bourbon. I picked up the receiver, touched the appropriate button and slapped it lightly to my ear. I inhaled a little more deeply than usual and made an indefinable number of subtle, almost unthinking changes to the shape of my throat. What came out was sort of a cross between Shadoe Stevens and Rod Roddy: "KLLR, All Bluegrass Weekend!"

*CLICK.*

Then I did that thing that everybody does when their phone connection is unexpectedly broken: I held the receiver out away from me --about fifteen inches, I'd guess-- and stared at it, with a mixture of confusion and frustration, for approximately three heartbeats. Why do we do that, anyway? Oh, sure, sure, I know... Most phones these days have a little LED display that actually tells you that the line really is dead, but I don't think that's why we do it. Phone manufacturers have put that little display there because they know that everybody, everywhere, for decades on end, has stared at precisely that spot every time one of their calls gets cut short.

I think it's a deep-seated, almost instinctive bit of body language. It may very well go all the way back to Alexander Graham Bell himself, staring intently and frowning at a primitive earpiece. What do you suppose his thoughts were at that moment? Was it, "Oh, now what the hell is wrong with this damned thing?" Or was it something more along these lines: "Watson, you little prig, how dare you hang up on me!" Probably, it was a little bit of both.

Of course, the gesture could be just another innocuous product of a media-intensive culture. We may just be acting out. I think it's entirely possible that we have all been trained and conditioned by countless characters in countless movies and TV shows who gaze quizzically at countless prop receivers. In this way, we have all become psychologically unable to put the phone down without giving it a strange look.

I gave the phone a strange look, then I put it down.

It rang again. I picked it up. This time, I used my normal voice. Well, almost normal: I infused it with a healthy hint of solicitation: "Uh, yeah... Is, uh, is Suzy there?"

Wouldn't you know, the person on the other end was actually named Susan. She was calling "on behalf of (my) credit card account." Whomever had written her script had a very shaky sense of grammar.

"What's wrong?" I asked, stopping just short of "What's wrong, now?"

"Oh, nothing!" she gushed. "I just called to tell you about our Payment Protection Program."

"I-already-know-about-it-thank-you-good-bye."

"Oh, good! Then you already know..." and she launched into Phase One of the Main Script.

Yes, Susan, I already know about it. It only cost $9.99 a month, and it is marketed as 'Less than ten dollars!' It doesn't seem too unreasonable until you remember that the basic cost gets compounded by an interest rate so mathematically aberrant that post-grads at MIT are still trying to come up with a Greek symbol for it. It appears on your bill in small print and you hardly ever notice it until, one day, you discover that you owe somebody a kidney.

"Uh, listen," I said, "do we have to do this right now? You kinda caught me at a bad time... I mean, do you realize what's going on? Listen to this!" Then I held the phone out in front of me, toward the television, which was tuned to CNN. I waited. Five seconds... ten... twenty. I sipped my drink. The ice was melting too fast. God, it's been hot, lately, hasn't it? Would-be bourbon connoisseurs take note: The best bang for your buck is Jim Beam, black label. It is (a) pretty good stuff, (b) relatively inexpensive and (c) not too hard to find. Of course, you don't mix something that good with Coke. Any ol' cheap, run-of-the-mill bourbon will do, if you're just going to mix it. Don't fall into the Jack Daniel's trap, though. First of all, Jack isn't a bourbon --it's a Tennessee Whiskey-- but that isn't my point. Jack Daniel's costs way too much and, besides, any subtlety it might have is buried under twenty feet of charcoal flavor.

And just in case you want charcoal flavor: Buy Evan Williams.

Now, then... where was I? Oh, right, I was on the phone. I put the receiver to my ear again and asked, "Did you hear that?"

"Actually," she said, "all I heard was that kind of 'wah-wah, wah-wah-huh, wah-wah' voice from the Charlie Brown cartoons. You know-- whenever the teacher talks."

"Really?" I asked. "Huh. You know, there's probably a metaphor in that, but I don't have time to look for it, right now. I'm watching CNN. They're covering the Big Game."

"Oh, really? Which game?" she asked brightly-- much more brightly than anything she'd said so far. Much too brightly, for my tastes.

"I'm watching the first few innings of World War Three," I said. "The scrappy, underdog Hezbollah squad pushed across a run on a suicide squeeze and then turned a nifty little double play to get out of the first; but those big, Israeli 'roid freaks have the bases loaded again in their half of the second and they have the top of the order coming up."

There was a pause. Then she said, "Well, I'd really like to send you some literature about our Payment Protection Program..."

"That'd-be-great-why-don't-you-drop-it-in-the-mail-thank-you-good-bye."

"Oh, wait!" she said quickly. "I need to verify your address."

She needn't have bothered. I had checked my address that very morning and, sure enough, it was still there. But I didn't say that. Instead I said, "You guys send me a bill every month. I think you already have my address."

"It's just something we need to do," she said in one of those 'you know how it is' tones.

I sighed. In fact, I made a point of it: I sighed loudly; I sighed heavily; I practically sighed the words out as I said, "Okay... shoot." I'm not exactly sure why I used the word "shoot." Maybe it was TV. Or maybe it was the bourbon.

I heard a staccato series of keystrokes over the phone line. Then she told me my address. I said, "Yep, that's me. Bingo! Why-don't-you-drop-it-in-the-mail-thank-you-good-bye."

"Oh, wait!" she said. "First-I-need-to-make-sure-you-understand..." and she began to recite Phase Two of the Script. It was at this point that she dropped any last, remaining veneer of salesmanship. The words came fast and slurred and jammed together and totally lacking even a hint of sincerity.

Carefully, quietly, I laid the phone on the couch beside me. I took a sip of my drink. I picked up the TV remote and switched over to the Fox News Channel. You know-- for the home team call. They almost managed to hide their smirks as they intoned their slogan, "Fair and balanced," then spent several minutes openly rooting for Israel to blow the game wide open.

I flipped over to MSNBC. They were interviewing some American Idol also-ran from two years ago. Go figure.

I picked up the phone again. She was still talking. I cleared my throat and said, "I know where you live, Susan."

Pause. Then she said, "I beg your pardon?"

"Sorry. I just said that to get your attention. I don't actually know where you live, personally, but I do know where [the credit card company's] western collection center is, and I don't mean the anonymous P.O. box they have in Salt Lake City, either. They're actually housed in a big, low, white building with a kind of an off-brown trim, just off of [a particular street] in [a suburb of Salt Lake City]. You see, I'm in Utah all the time, and I know where their building is. In fact, I mail my check to them, every month, from the mailbox out by the street... about a hundred yards from their south entrance. I've been hoping somebody in the mail room or somewhere would notice some obscure code imbedded in the postmark and put two and two together. I like knowing that they know that I know that they know that I know exactly where they're at."

Another pause. Then she stammered, "I... uh... I'm-I'm not sure..."

I said: "Listen. Suzy. If you want to send me a brochure or a pamphlet or something about the Payment Protection Program, that's fine. Go ahead and drop it in the mail. You have my address. Frankly, I think it's a waste of paper and time and postage, because as soon as I get it, I'm going to take a heavy-duty pair of scissors and cut it up into little pieces. Then I'm going to put those into a little baggie and take them out on the road with me and scatter them on some lonely stretch of interstate where no one will ever find them. But, hey, if it makes you feel better, then you go right ahead and drop it in the mail, anyway. Okay?" I paused. Then I said, "Oh, and Susan? Just one more thing..."

"Y-yes?"

"Bud-Selig-must-go-thank-you-good-bye."