![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
One ringy-dingy
Dec. 4th, 2003 09:06 amSo anyway, Tuesday night. I'm online, nosing through my friends page, when the phone rings. I don't recognize the voice when I pick up.
"May I speak with Adam, please?"
"Speaking."
"Adam, I'm calling from MCI to talk to you about the new Neighborhood plan."
Okay, fine. Except that I hear a woman laughing hysterically in the background.
Now, you have to understand that, as a telephone operator, my life is plagued with crank calls, eight hours a day, five days a week. There are entirely too many 13-year-old brain donors who believe dialing 0 and ordering a pizza is just hi-LAR-ious, or think they're too clever for words if they ask, "What's the number for 911?" (The feeling of cleverness fades quickly, though, when said operator actually connects them with 911, and they find themselves chatting with a peace officer who has their phone number. Poor brain donors.)
So when I get a crank call, I'm usually pretty quick to hang up, or to find some way to make the caller's life a walking nightmare. The problem, though, is that whoever is harassing me now used my name, which means that it's either an extraordinarily well-prepared crank caller, or someone I don't really want to hang up on. So...
"Who is this?"
"This is MCI..."
"No. Seriously. Who is this?"
"Okay. Seriously, I'm taking a survey. Are you aware of the existence of pagans in this country?"
All right, not a random guy pulling my name from the phone book, then. He is, however, annoyingly persistent. A note to anyone who tries to crank call me (and please don't): do not bother with any Crank Call Concepts that involve asking me questions. I won't answer them.
"Okay: Who. Is. This?"
I think he takes pity on me at that point, because he lets slip a little sideways comment about the Intervarsity Cthulhu Followers, which is the light bulb in the proverbial fridge: either I'm talking to a long-lost college chum (which I wasn't) or...
"Put![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rafaela on the phone."
"What? Sir, I-"
"Put her on the phone."
She's on in seconds.
Upon questioning, she reveals that she's out with some rather silly friends, and she'd basically decided that they needed to call someone long-distance, and further that I needed some randomness in my life. I did, indeed. (I discover later, though, that if my brain isn't in the right frame of mind, I'm useless at telephone truth-or-dare. Ah, well.)
"May I speak with Adam, please?"
"Speaking."
"Adam, I'm calling from MCI to talk to you about the new Neighborhood plan."
Okay, fine. Except that I hear a woman laughing hysterically in the background.
Now, you have to understand that, as a telephone operator, my life is plagued with crank calls, eight hours a day, five days a week. There are entirely too many 13-year-old brain donors who believe dialing 0 and ordering a pizza is just hi-LAR-ious, or think they're too clever for words if they ask, "What's the number for 911?" (The feeling of cleverness fades quickly, though, when said operator actually connects them with 911, and they find themselves chatting with a peace officer who has their phone number. Poor brain donors.)
So when I get a crank call, I'm usually pretty quick to hang up, or to find some way to make the caller's life a walking nightmare. The problem, though, is that whoever is harassing me now used my name, which means that it's either an extraordinarily well-prepared crank caller, or someone I don't really want to hang up on. So...
"Who is this?"
"This is MCI..."
"No. Seriously. Who is this?"
"Okay. Seriously, I'm taking a survey. Are you aware of the existence of pagans in this country?"
All right, not a random guy pulling my name from the phone book, then. He is, however, annoyingly persistent. A note to anyone who tries to crank call me (and please don't): do not bother with any Crank Call Concepts that involve asking me questions. I won't answer them.
"Okay: Who. Is. This?"
I think he takes pity on me at that point, because he lets slip a little sideways comment about the Intervarsity Cthulhu Followers, which is the light bulb in the proverbial fridge: either I'm talking to a long-lost college chum (which I wasn't) or...
"Put
rafaela on the phone.""What? Sir, I-"
"Put her on the phone."
She's on in seconds.
Upon questioning, she reveals that she's out with some rather silly friends, and she'd basically decided that they needed to call someone long-distance, and further that I needed some randomness in my life. I did, indeed. (I discover later, though, that if my brain isn't in the right frame of mind, I'm useless at telephone truth-or-dare. Ah, well.)
