Shenanigans

Justin posted a great story on his blog today about some of our best shenanigans. I'm copying some of it here, J, because I haven't shared any decent fun stories in some whiles.

Trying to sell me peaches
Justin Thompson

...It takes me back to my summer job throughout college where somehow I was lucky enough to land a gig in a flags & silk florals company in Milford, Ohio.

There were interesting characters at that joint. My grrlllzz, Shanti & Yvonne. The predatory sex starved grandmother who, one day, was dressed in a tiger print dress and walked by and said, “Justin…I’m not wearing any panties…” and then growled and drug her feline-fingernail down my cheek. It was awful, yet wonderul in that it was such a hilarious moment to live through. She did walk back by with her coffee and said, “Just kidding!” and snapper the elastic of her underwear through her dress. Yep, total class. This is the same woman who I think got in trouble because they put a suction-cupped dildo on her monitor and the box around it, before “Dick in the Box” was ever a music sensation.

That was also the job where my boss’ last name was Bosse and she loved Evanescence and didn’t have kids, but was like a modern-day Carol Brady, but if she never had kids. So sassy and spunky. Loved her.

Then there were a slew of other folks that worked there of various social degrees and palatability. People with hunches, fake limbs, grody teeth, et al.

One of my favorite characters was a woman who was quite literally a bit crazy. Just really weird, quiet, kept to herself. Imagine if Carrie hadn’t died and went to work in a call center. Yep, that’s this woman. Stringy long grey hair, glasses, horrible clothing with lots of shoulder pads. I sat back to back with her in a quad with two other ladies. One of the other gals from another quad had a beta fish and this woman loved it. When the other gal, we’ll call her Fancy cause she was, went on vacation, everyone was looking after the beta fish - but it died. ‘Carrie’ cried at her desk when she learned the fish had died. It’s a fucking 83 cent fish from Wal-Mart, which is like their hospice. I mean, the tiny plastic hummus containers they live in there is God’s fishy waiting room. So it was no shock that the fish died.

Well, because she was so devastated, the manager of the call center bought her a beta to call her own. The next day, bitch rolled up to her desk with about 4 bags from PetSmart. Big ass tank with filter, gravel, plants, toys, etc. And the worst part of it was, I would hear her constantly tapping the glass in a whispery, obnoxious voice, “Here fishy! Here fishy!”
Those were moments where I wanted to scream. But instead, I got my revenge for all the foul people I had to work with. I resorted to some old-school trickery with my pal Laura: prank-calling.

At the time Laura worked for DONA, which is something about birthing babies and is usually ran by a bunch of lezzers (Laura, clarify if I’m wrong, ha ha), and she had down time so we would be chatting back and forth at work and I’d hear certain folks hang up and tell her to call in and it was the goal to make the call the most uncomfortable, unproductive, aggravating and silly phone call that these people would ever live through.

Laura would call in and usually go, “Hello so & so, how are you? Good. How’s the weather? Great. Well, here it’s just spitting out, not doing much of one thing or another…” and she would keep talking about the dumbest things. Making pointless conversations, like an old woman who hasn’t spoken to a soul in weeks, with that kind of desperation in hearing another human voice. That was how she went into these calls. Perfect.

Sometimes she’d call and in the middle of her normal, “Well, can I get some catalogues or something…you said ya’ll have flowers too? Huh…uh huh….oh, wait, TELL ‘EM LARGE MARGE SENT YA!” (this comes from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, clip available here).

Honestly, it was so damn funny because I would tell her to call and not know what she was saying but I would hear the people on my end trying to work their way out of the call or answering these silly questions she was asking them. One woman, a victim of the prank above, walked over and leaned over the half-way on my cube and said, with a grimace, “I just got the weirdest phone call. Some woman called in and was talking and then screamed in my ear [at this point she lifts the post-it note that she had transcribed the message onto, as if it weren't memorable enough to last the 2 feet from her desk to mine; and reads in pure dead-pan voice] ‘Tell them ‘Large Marge’ sent ya?’ I mean, what’s that about? She hurt my ear.”

I’ve never bitten my tongue so hard in my life or had to swallow guttural laughter than so needed to be released.

And I can’t even do the moose mating call noise justice by describing it here, but one person thought it was a coworker calling to ask if they wanted to pick them up something for lunch and had a wreck. That’s how amazing this noise is that Laura can make.

Laura actually got to prank ‘Carrie’ at one point and just talked her ear off about having the wrong number, about how her new cell phone was confusing her, how she was trying to reach her friend Beth about the slaw for the church picnic but needed to use melons so as to avoid flaring up George’s colon polyps. I mean, this was the craziest conversation ever. After about 7 minutes on the phone, which is an eternity in the call center, she got of the phone and a co-worker goes, “What was that all about?” and ‘Carrie’ responds, “I’m not sure, but I think she was trying to sell me peaches.”

I had to walk the fuck away from my desk and out to my car in the parking lot to scream. Literally, scream.

Oh, the tears of laughter I cried at that job were amazing. Fun, fun, fun.

At my last job, Laura got a couple of pranks in on our dumb as shit receptionist via Betty Shively.

Some days I get the urge to prank the call center here.

There’s just something so dumb about doing it that makes it the most enjoyable way to waste away 8 hours of your day in a concrete box.

*******

To be fair, DONA wasn't all lezzers, but it's easy to blur the line.

If I had to spell the dying moose noise, it would be this:

“INGYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAA!”

Just say a word ending in -ing, hold your tongue against your palate at the end of the word, and produce a high pitched yawp. Easy as that.

Oh...the Lord God made them all...

So there's that,

Laura