Telemarketing--It's Not for Sissies (Or Me)

Back in the day before I had the wetness surgically removed from behind my ears, I was a telemarketer. My first summer job was at a place called Inflation Fighter. We sold coupon books that were intended to fight wait for it inflation. I sat in a smoke-filled room with a rotary phone, a quill snuffer, parchment lists of numbers, and a script. The script went something like this:

"Hello, Blank, this is blank. You've been selected to receive a book of free goods and services worth over two-hundred million dollars. You'll also get fine dining at places like The Snot Cauldron and Tortilla Juan's. What is your address so I can send you this free book of free services for absolutely free once you freely pay us 39.95? Have a blank day."

On my first day I sat next to some fella named Captain Jack. He smoked heavily and had a flask tucked in his captain's uniform. For hours I dutifully cranked the phone and called the trunk number and four-digit extension printed on narrow slips of paper. For hours I received angry hangups and one person in particular told me to stick my coupon book where the sun don't shine (I asked him if he meant my ass, but he hung up before I could conclude my query). And for hours I told my vict... er, customers that they could get a two-for-one coupon for Tortilla Juan's.

Captain Jack finally leaned over and told me that tortilla was pronounced tor-tee-ya, not tor-tilla as I had been logically mispronounciatiousing it for hours and hours. Once I corrected my mistake, I went on to make a sale and earned myself seventeen cents--which in those days could buy you a quahog and a tin of baby dodo meat.

Where is this all going, you don't ask? Well, I had a flashback to my telemarketing days when I decided to call my mom's relatives--people dug up by some professional Mormons I had hired. One was Edgar Blank and the other was Enyd Blank, both of them living in Phoenix not far from each other. Mom wanted a picture of her mom, Gladys, who died in 2005. I searched Instagram and Snapchat for Gladys but she wasn't there for some reason. It seemed I would have to resort to the ol' rotary phone to get a damn photo.

Enyd was 93, while Edgar was probably in his seventies. Edgar was a retired police officer or military man (not sure how we knew that) and I thought I would call him first, since he would be more friendly and coherent perhaps. As I dialed the number, I had this image of him:

"Who wants to lick my sweater?"

Edgar answered right away.

"May I speak to Edgar Blank?"

"Speaking."

"Hi," I said, feeling the spirit of Captain Jack hovering close, "I'm Gregory Johnson and I'm related to you. I know, er, this is, er, a weird phone call, and stuff. But your wife, now deceased, was related to my mom, she was my mom's half sister and I'm, er, I'm your, uh... half-nephew-in-law once removed...? Anyway, I... Hello?"

He hung up. So much for him getting a sweet deal at the Snot Cauldron!

My image of him was now:

I hadn't been hung up on for hours not to have some tenacity in my spine, so I decided to call Enyd.

She answered right away.

"Enyd Blank?"

"Yes?"

"This is Gregory Johnson, and I'm related to you. This is a weird phone call. But I'm your grand-nephew, you are, uh, my mom's mom's sister?"

I listened. Was she still alive?

"Hello?"

"I'm here," she said.

I told her how I had found her Mormonistically and asked if she would be interested in a coupon book that would save her hundreds of dollars in 1983 money. (Reader, she was!) Finally, I asked for a photo of her sister, maybe some photos of her family...? She said she'd look around. She was neither friendly nor cigar-chomping. She wrote down my address.

Now everyday I check my mailbox, as if a portal into a lost world of blank.

This was a good post. I'm going to reward myself with a tor-tilla. (Fuck this tor-tee-ya bullshit.)