Just Off Center

1. An obscene number of people think it’s cute to have their small children record their answering machine messages. I run into this no fewer than ten times per night. These are usually kids who haven’t yet learned how to form about seventeen of their consonants and four of their vowels. It’s completely unintelligible. Yet somehow the message always sounds exactly the same:

“Hello, you have reached a gaggle of intellectually incontinent retards with a dangerously high amount of our self worth based in the regular receipt of compliments on our child’s cuteness. Please give us some justification for our existence. *BEEP*”

2. Women seem to always consider having the last word more important than making sure that last word doesn’t give the impression that you have the brains of a tree stump. So by no surprise, it’s the women who are by far the more common practitioners of the “no and click”. This occurs when I am casually and pleasantly giving my pitch to some careerless, purposeless, futureless wretch of a woman when she suddenly cuts me off and says “no” followed by hanging up on me. This must seem to her to be a good way to make me think, “damn, I wouldn’t want to have to go through that again. I’d better remove that number.” In fact, I’ll usually just code it for another call in the next twelve hours. It’s simple, bitch. Just hear me out and say no or tell me to take you off the call list.

3. People are just impossibly clever. I mean take last night for example. I’m calling for National Geographic and this guy answers the phone. Instead of the hesitant “yes?” I normally get, this monument to wit spouts off with “whaddaya got for me, chief!?!” I mean that right there was enough to make me feel a bond between us. I mean he called me chief, and he cut right through the pleasantries. It’s almost as if he knew that I was calling to try and sell him something. I had to check the name on my screen to make sure I wasn’t calling Kreskin. And then when I told him I was going to be sending him a free gift; a detailed satellite imaged world map, he really knocked my socks off. Oh, man this was soooo fresh:

“Will it be autographed?”

“Autographed sir? By whom?”

“Ok, buddy, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to send me that map, but I want it to be autographed by all the mayors of all the major cities in the world that are on that map. And I want it done… in HIEROGLYPHS!!!! *click*”

Oh damn! Man, did you see what he did there? Did you see how he hooked me in by telling me that he wanted the map, but then put the impossible task of getting all those autographs on me? I mean who was I calling here? Did this guy have his own variety show on Comedy Central? And then just when I thought that I had it hard enough with my charge to accumulate all these signatures he hits me with…I can hardly believe it… “in HIEROGLYPHS!” Holy shit, yo! I thought I this sale was going to take me a lifetime to complete. But then just to let me off the hook he hung up on me. Wow… I mean fucking hellawow. All I can say is that if this guy is indicative of the type of cleverness of the average American, we are in for some funny times, people. Some funny times indeed.

4. Young mothers are the most evil horrible human beings imaginable. I spent three hours on Saturday selling Puzzlemania activity books for Highlights for Children. This means I’m calling a bunch of mothers of young kids. By the end of three hours, I was ready to destroy my monitor with my keyboard in one single Judo chop. I was hung up on, cut off, yelled at, cussed out, insulted, and even burped at. I guess you young moms are so busy instilling your young’uns with so much moral and ethical goodness that you’ve left none for yourselves. Pity. So go ahead and hang up on me. I’m sure you can teach your kids logic and reasoning skills all by yourself. After all, your big ass brains and great decision making skills are what landed you with this awesome mom/housewife gig in the first place. You monstrous, demonic slits.

5. 1^st Generation immigrants in California will buy anything you try to sell them. All I have to do is pronounce their names correctly and I could sell them timeshares in Hell. True, some of them have names like Jminstrvesstra, but you just sound it out your best and they appreciate the effort. And the Asians? Oh, my beloved Asians. You just can’t get enough of my shit can you? I earned enough commission to surpass my hourly pay this week thanks to you and all I had to do was not bust out laughing at the ones with a last name of Ho. Here’s to you, Ho. BONZAI!

6. People act like the National Do Not Call List can cure cancer. The simple fact is that that list only prevents you from being called by companies you’ve never done business with. But if I’ve got your number, it’s because you fucking gave it to me. But still at least three times I hear some pompous fuck rattle off “I’m on the National Do Not Call list!” I suppose this is the point when I’m supposed to ask them where to send my life savings before I commit Hare Kare at my desk. Well guess what, Columbo. I’m not stopping ‘til you hang up on me. And then I’m gonna code you for a call back the next day. So just hear me out and deal with me now and we can end the pain right here.

7. Most of my coworkers are blithering idiots. This is the bottom, people. I mean the collective IQ is probably about as low as the total number of teeth. It’s nothing but fat white trash women, skinny white trash men, ghetto blacks whose voices justify every big lip joke ever told, and scrawny drama loving gays. I mean the manager had to actually tell the black guys to try to do a white person impersonation to get more sales. And it worked. So when these people call you, just stop and listen. Even if you have no interest in buying the product, you’re guaranteed some entertainment when they say “axe you a question” or try to say that National Geographic’s mission is to increase global awareness through education and conversation. It’s conservation you fucking twit!

# posted by Mike @ 3:12 PM