I have this “thing” about talking on the telephone. I’d usually rather send out an email and wait hours or days for a response than pick up the phone and speak to someone. Phones are like a solvent to the brain-glue that usually holds my words together in a coherent sentence. I get nervous, talk too fast, start to mumble. Before long the person on the other end of the line is feeling sorry for me, and we’re both hoping the conversation will just be over soon.
On the basketball court that is interpersonal communication, I’m not exactly Jordan when it comes to writing but maybe… Nowitski (last year’s playoff games notwithstanding)? I’ve even been known to score a few baskets when talking face to face, but if you get me on the telephone I’m that guy you’ve never heard of who spends all season on the bench. In fact, I may actually be the bench.
This didn’t stop me from accepting a job last year working in the service department of a Mercedes-Benz dealership, making phone calls to unhappy rich people all day. I’m not sure how I didn’t get fired.
Anyway. Not one but two opportunities to make myself look like a drooling inbred presented themselves to me today and I gladly embraced both. The first was to the father of a small girl whose care was placed in my hands on a last-minute late-March snow day.
The scenario: I was cold. The family has a gorgeous new woodstove that usually keeps the house heated to a temperature similar to those recorded just outside the gates of Hell, and I had dressed accordingly. However, the stove was not lit, it was snowing outside, and I was cold. I didn’t really want to call Tim and ask him if I could start a fire (in the stove that is, not in the middle of the kitchen); I knew there was probably a reason I wasn’t sweating and dehydrated. But I thought, What they hey. I’m an adult. I’m capable of a quick telephone conversation. I’ll just ask if it’s cool if I put some wood on the stove instead of cranking up the thermostat. Gas prices and all, ya dig? No problem.
Problem. Big problem. I should have known there was going to be a problem when I checked the number written on the fridge whiteboard three times in the manner of an obsessive-compulsive counting cracks in the ceiling.
The phone call:
TIM: Hello?
ME: Hi!
*Pause. Wait for recognition.*
Simultaneously: ME: It’s Amie… TIM: Is something wrong?
ME *trying too hard to be casual*: Oh, it’s nothing serious at all. I was just wondering if it would be ok if I put some wood on the stove? *Pause* Or if….
TIM: Oh. It’s just that there’s no kindling left, so it would be a little tricky….
ME *cutting in*: Ohrightyeahok, I figured there was some reason it was off, so yeah, that’s ok.
TIM: If you’re cold you can just turn up the temperature a little on the thermostat on the wall.
ME *too soon again*: Ohrightyeahok, that’s what I’ll do, that’s no problem, yeah that sounds good, okay, sure.
TIM: Okay?
ME: Yeah, sure, that sounds fine, that’s what I’ll do.
TIM: Alright.
ME: So…
Simultaneously: ME *as my brain, tired of the effort of holding me together, says “You’re on your own kid”*: T-talk to you t-t-t-…. Tim: Talk to you later.
Then he laughed at me and hung up. My mind immediately went into emergency memory-and-trauma suppressor mode to prevent me from collapsing in a red-faced heap onto the floor and scaring the small girl. I cringe now as I type.
I’m serious, someone paid me to talk to their clients. Clients who had spent fifty grand, at the low end, on their vehicles and expected to speak to someone with two brain cells to rub together when they got a call regarding their recent service. Go figure.
As I have my doubts about the loyalty of the fan base I’ve no doubt acquired since yesterday, I’ll save the second telephone adventure for tomorrow. End of side one. Please turn tape over.
Daily Photo:
Souvenir from a day spent with a six year old. Don’t try to tell me you don’t want one.
