The Bill Collector
I am minding my very own business, which is not my normal habit, but in this case I probably might have been. The house phone rang. Now that phone hardly rings ever, because we don't use it much. I just think we should have one "in case". I am not sure what the "in case" is, but I am needy, and that's how it is.
"Hello", I say.
"Tiffany Dawkins?" a man says in a very stern, no nonsense voice.
"No, there is no Tiffany here", I am brave, I say it in a nasty voice. No one can out nasty me if I dont want em to...
"Do you know Tiffany?", he demands haughtily.
I say, "NO I dont know anyone named Tiffany."
He obviously does not believe me.. He angrily says with a slightly deeper voice, "Are you sure you don't know Tiffany? This is the number I have for Tiffany. I am calling about her AT&T phone bill which was never paid."
"Well," I say, with just the right amount of poopiness, "That is more information than I need, since I am not Tiffany, nor do I know her."
I hang up.
Now, don't you just love caller ID?
I redial the number....
Ringing...
Woman answers, "ABC Collections"
"Hello!" I say cheerfully, "Is Tiffany there?"
She sounds a little stunned, since by now her caller ID is working things out for her. "No, Tiffany is not here."
I add just the right amount of perplexed disbelief, "Are you sure she isn't there? Do you know Tiffany? Is she related to someone there?"
I hear, "NOOOOOoooo, we don't know Tiffany."
AHA I say to the little demons who live in my head....this is going so well.
"Ohhhhh," I say, with the innocence of a child (demon child), "Should I call you back in a half hour to see if she is there, or maybe called?"
Now I can feel the woman getting her irate working up a little, so I rush on..."You call me constantly looking for Tiffany. It seems that Tiffany didn't pay her phone bill. Now I am not Einstien (forgive the spelling), but I have already figured out that if Tiffany didn't pay her phone bill, and it was disconnected by the telepone company, you can almost make a bet that if you call that number, it won't be the missing Tiffany."
This is met by silence.
So on I go, "So here's what I am gonna do, just to make sure you and I stay on the same page here, I am gonna call you every 30 minutes or so, just to see if Tiffany checks in."
I don't give her time to say much before bustin in again with more of my foolishness. "You know how, when someone calls your house, interrupting your day to ask for a person who does not live in your house, a person you don't know? And you say, 'You have the wrong number', and that person calls back over and over again? Well, here's my plan. I will call you every 30 minutes. We are gonna do this together, you and I, until Tiffany calls you!"
She says after a short pause, "Ma'am I will remove your number from our files."
"Yay!" I say, with the best poopiness voice i have.
Sadly, I have no more calls for Tiffany.
Bill Collector Practice Session
A few years ago, I was the Human Resource Specialist for a large retailer, and one of my jobs was to administer the Worker's Comp law for injuries according to the state standard. This happened in Ohio.
A girl had been injured (cracked tailbone) when another employee yanked a chair out from under her in the breakroom while she was about to sit down. She landed on the concrete floor, and as a result she was transported by ambulance to the hospital. He was terminated for "horseplay". After a few weeks, she was released to come to work, and all went on as before, less one rather childish prankster.
About a year later, she comes to my office with a bill in her hand. It is from a bill collector. She tells me that he is very rude and hateful, and she doesnt know what to do, since the bill is from the injury. Well, in Ohio, a bill is submitted directly to BWC, never to the patient. She isnt responsible to pay a bill that is the result of her injury or transport to facility. I am brave, I will call him. I am also not a nice person in my work setting. (Could be why they made book on how long new secretaries would stay, 6 weeks being considered long term)
I call Mr Sweetiepie.
"Hello, Mr. Jones, this is Damfast (I am not sure I am allowed to say my name on here, but those of you who know, know). I am from Company ABC. I have an employee here with a work related collection notice. Can we take care of this for her?"
Before I can say ONE MORE WORD this guy goes out of his mind. I can visualize spit forming in the corners of his mouth, running down the fat lines in his cheeks. He screams, "NO we are not working out anything. You people never help me, I am not helping you."
I try reason: "You won't be helping me, you will be helping your company." i don't get far, because he is already gnashing his teeth and screaming. I know he is sitting forward in his chair with his phone clenched in his hand, face red, probably grunting. He rails for a few minutes, telling me all the awful things Company ABC has done, how they never help him with current employee records, they wont give out addresses or phone numbers, or dates of employment. I guess we are real turds.
Eventually I say, "May I speak to your supervisor?"
Now he really screams, "NOOOOO" and slams down the phone.
I call back.
Woman answers.
"May I speak to Mr. Jones supervisor?" I am still very very calm.
She hesitates, I go on hold.
"This is Mr. Jones." he says, you can hear him gasping.
I say, "This is Damfast from Company ABC" I get no further.
He yells, "Don't call me"
"I wasnt calling you, I was calling your supervisor." I say, grinning at the sounds I am hearing. By now I have him on speaker phone so the employee can enjoy the show. We are high fiving each other at the sounds of a heart attack coming.
"I am my supervisor!" He screams it irrationally....and hangs up
I call back, woman answers
"May I speak to Mr. Jones' supervisor's supervisor?" I ask sweetly...
Here he comes, I know he has jumped from his chair and is twisting the cord around his own neck. while he screams. "I told you not to call back."
I say, with such sweet patience, "I am not calling you, I am calling your supervisor's supervisor."
"I am my supervisor's supervisor" Now he is at top vocal levels... Heart attack is close!!
"Ohhh", I say, still sweet voice, then I get him, "You must work for a really crappy little collection company. You are the collector, the supervisor, and the supervisor's supervisor. Are you the lady who answers too?"
I can hardly hold back the giggles, the employee has sunk down the wall in hysterics long ago.
"If you don't stop calling me, I am going to call the police" He screams. He sounds like he is strangling. I think the hand twiching is the one with the phone cord. Tension has increased. We are almost done.
"But I am not calling you, I am calling your supervisor's supervisor." I say it in a reasonable tone, in fact not once during this insanity have I raised my voice. I am the picture of patience, He is the picture of insanity practiced to perfection.
He screams at me, "Stop calling me...." I can still hear the rasping breath as he slams down the phone.
The employee is gasping for breath. She says to me, " I don't believe it. A bill collector just hung up on you...three times."
I have to say, when the story went around I was a big hit.
Workers Comp paid the bill. I dont know what happened to Mr. Jones.
The Telemarketer
I just love those telemarketer calls! I love them so much that when I visit my friends and they get a call, the phone is handed to me.
There is a young man on the other end of this call. He informs me that I am fortunate because I just won a trip to my choice of three different towns in the Continental United States of America!!! How lucky was I to be at Ruby's house that afternoon!! I can tell you the excitement level was off the hook!!!!
Telemarketer guy: Hello Ma'am. My name is George from Vacation Scammer People ( I like the name George, dont you?). I am not selling anything! (bull crap I think merrily, but lets go on).
He goes on to begin to tell me about this fabulous list of towns. I let him get about halfway through his written script. And then...
Me: (as an incredibly old and stupid lady with a screechy voice) I won!!?? What did I win?
Telemarketer guy: (after this he will be referred to as George) You won a trip!!
Me: Ohhh my, I love trips! Where can I go?
George: Nashville, or Miami, or Hollywood...
Me: Interrupting with old age glee--I can go to Nashville?
George: Oh yes, you can go there.
Me: I have never been to Nashville!! (sounding happy happy)
George: Well, Ma'am you sure can go there!
Me: Ohhhh, I can go to Nashville?? (disbelief here) Who is this?
George: Begins again at the beginning of the wonderful script some jackanape has given him to use without variation. I let two sentences go...
Me: I can go to Nashville! (like I am telling another person in the room. As a matter of fact, I was, since people were wandering in to see what I was doing to this idiot.)
George: Yes ma'am
Me: Who is this??
George: This is Vacation Winner Scams Guy
Me: Ohhhhhhh, i love vacations.
George: Yes Ma'am, I know you do.
Me: Where can I go?
George: You can go to Nashville, Miami, or Hollywood....
Me: Ohhhhhh I can go to Nashville? I love Nashville. (sounding wistful now)
George: Beginning again with his super script. I let him go a little longer this time, he is really rushing to get it in. I can feel the push...
Me: Can I just go to Nashville?
George: (still very patient, this is a crazy old lady and a sale, he sees bonus points), Yes Ma'am.
Now, in the background, people have gathered, Ruby has a front row seat and has her hand jammed in her mouth, her husband has stopped watching the football game with his friends. They have muted the sound.
I hear giggling. They are using sleeves, hands and pillows. I cant look at them much...I already know I am funny, I dont need help with that....
After George runs thru his little scam sale a little more, ( he seems happy that I am not interrupting), he starts with the part about for the low price of $1000 he will help me set up this free trip.....
I say
in my screechy old lady voice....
"Did you just want to talk to my nurse?"
George hung up. I guess not.
Yes, I did do this
We had a new phone installed when we moved from base housing at WPAFB to our own place. We changed communities so it was a new number.
Problem was, it was one number away from Pizza Hut. I got calls constantly from people wanting to order pizza.. In the beginning, i was very patient, and I would tell people to redial, I even gave them the right number (one digit difference). After hundreds of calls at all hours, I called Pizza Hut. I told them we had a problem. I asked them to either change their number, or find a way to advertise their number better so I would get less calls.
They were rude.
I got even.
When I got a call for pizza, I took the order. I gave bargain prices. I told customers we had free sodas. I made up great sales. I was a great salesperson. Now at the time Pizza Hut did not deliver. You had to go there and get the pizza. People showed up. No Pizza. No Sale, no free soda.
After a week of my hard work, Pizza Hut called me. I said, I dont call them, they call me. Pizza Hut guy said if you dont stop I will call the police. I offered to come dial it for him. Told him, as long as they call me I will take the order. I will give them a price, and I will give them a time to come pick it up. Not my fault they go to your store instead of my house. They call me.
Pizza Hut changed their number.
^
That's pretty funny right there. If it's true. :wink:
yeah really true L. i am just a punk!
that IS funny....and a great way to make a point :yes:
you REALLY ARE a PUNK!!! :yes:
It all started when i was just a kid
I lived in Northern West Virginia on a farm that sat on the highest point in the county. Everyone didn't have running water, some of us didn't have electricity, and there was no such thing as cable tv. We didn't have much in the way of television and things like that. Depending on where you lived on the mountain, and if you were hooked up to electric, you could get some Pittsburgh television stations, but they were mostly fuzzy and snowy. We never got a real good look at Walt Disney unless we got a book from the bookmobile that had his picture on it somewhere. We spent a lot of time outside running the hills and woods finding ways to entertain ourselves. There were fabulous thunderstorms, huge snowstorms, and fireflies and sunsets in the mountains that would be impossible to paint. And there were imaginations. Let's see if I can remember the kids, there were Nancy and Kenneth, Martha, Lonnie, Michael, and Me, Damfast. That was the regular group, with a few people added in here and there, depending on the day or the plot of the moment. The kids further down the road, Randy and Gerry and Sharon sometimes showed up. Whoever was in the group of the day ended up in our side yard, which was really a few acres of meadow where my dad had built a swing set and some benches, and he had found a merry go round (one of those ones you push). You never knew what he would bring home on that big truck when he came, but there were great things, like a rowboat, a puppy, a bunch of baby pigs, or a big box you could crawl into pretending it was a playhouse. Dad told the boys if they kept it mowed he would get them some bases and build a batters cage, and he kept his word. One Saturday morning he had all those boys out there with hammers and saws and "man"tools, and by lunchtime we had a ball field on the end near the woods. He built us a tree house in an old willow tree, to us it was as high as the sky, but in reality it wasn't much taller than the porch roof. Mom didn't like that tree house much; she would tell us over and over again we were going to break our "fool necks". Our yard was the place to be.
The boys would run around pretending they were Whitey Ford, or Roger Maris, while the girls looked on in supposed awe, when actually we had someone's transistor radio tuned into the local station so we could hear the scratchy sounds of Ricky Nelson or the Shirelles. Most of men who weren't farmers worked in the coal mines or factories around the area. We had some of the original coal mines established by Consolidated Coal Company, and we were home to Alcan Aluminum and Westinghouse Sealed Lamp Plant. Everyone had at least one relative who worked for one of them. We were country kids.
We had a handyman; his name was Edward. He was a Keener, and very old, and mostly very very drunk. But he worked in our yard, on the barns and fences; he mowed hay, took care of the animals and he helped with butchering and repairs constantly. I always wondered how he could feed those pigs and cows all summer, and then help kill them in the fall. I didn't care so much about the chickens; I mostly wanted to kill them myself. Good thing for them they lived at my grandma's house. Edward lived in a cabin on a dirt road that ran behind Nancy and Kenneth's house. The cabin was almost at the top of the lower mountain, and was a typical cabin one would think could be found in the hills. It was unpainted, with no electric, no running water, sagging walls, dangerous floors and a door. When Edward died, he had no relatives, and no one, other than a few looters ever came to the cabin or claimed it for firewood.
The boys thought they were better than girls in every way. They were stronger, and smarter and could hold their breath longer, they could ride bikes faster and drive a tractor straighter. As for us girls, we were rebellious most of the time. Mostly because the boys would send us for jugs of water, or try to get us to stay in the outfield while they pitched and hit the ball. We learned quickly that none of them could hit the ball to the trees, except for Billy. He could hit that ball clear into the woods. Of course, when he did that, we would lounge around in the outfield, chanting, "The hitter is the gitter." And while Billy and the boys searched for "his" ball, we searched for ways to let the boys know how dumb we really thought they were. Like the time we convinced Kenneth that he could float off the garage roof with an umbrella, just like Mary Poppins. Or the time we stole the ladder while the boys were on the barn roof trying to catch a bat. The day we had them all convinced that there was an escapee from Prunty Town living in my barn. Prunty Town was a juvenile facility for wayward boys. To get sent there meant you had to be pretty bad. Telling a boy he was headed to Prunty Town was pretty much like telling him he was hell bound. But this day, it was the best day.
The boys decided to take over Edward's vacant cabin. They painted NO GIRLS ALLOWED on a piece of my dad's barn siding and nailed it to the door. (They had just watched Spanky and our Gang that Saturday morning) They made a big deal about how the girls weren't allowed to come into the cabin. They made fun of us, they told us that they had important meetings up there. We all knew they were reading Archie comic books because we saw Kenneth sneak them into his shirt before he left home.
We decided it was time to take a stand. We were about to take the Alamo. So Nancy, Martha and I, and three of my cousins and a couple other girls who came by to play sometimes made a plan.
Nancy snuck into her mom's linen closet and took a white sheet; Nancy's mom drank a little and took a lot of valium, so she was not real perky most days. Her dad worked at Westinghouse on second shift, so he slept until late morning, which made that linen closet a great target. We found baseballs and basketballs and rocks. We found my oldest cousin's fishing rod leaning against the wall of our barn and robbed it of some good test line. And we set off for the cabin.
The run down cabin was built halfway up the mountain side, on a road that probably had about a thirty degree upgrade. The front of the cabin sat level with the road on a little flat jut out that formed a shadowy lane with the overgrown weeds by the road, and the back was suspended on wooden poles because at some points it was a far up as a full story in the air. There were floors that were missing boards, cracked and creaky. Under the cabin it was muddy and damp, and the dirt was a slimy mess like you would find in the bottom of a pond. But we were on a mission. So we went in there anyway. Now I know the boys were off riding their bikes, but I am not sure where they were at the time. More than likely they were at Policeman's Lake, which was a pond that was strictly off limits to kids swimming without adults. We all did anyway, we fished it and swam it and snuck the rowboat that my older cousins had hidden in the weeds out into the water so we could jump in the middle. We had an unspoken code that no matter how mad we got, we could never tell on each other for any water recreation on that pond.
With the boys away, we had access to the inside of the cabin, so my cousin, Connie and I snuck through the front door. There was only a rickety table propped up against the wall, a fireplace that was covered in cobwebs and dirt. Coal dust was scattered in and around it. There was dirt and old Nehi bottles everywhere and the windows were broken or just missing altogether. And there was a chair. It was a wooden chair, and I recognized it as one of my mom's old ones that she had stored in the barn a few years ago. I wondered then if she knew it had been relocated. Connie pulled the fishing line out of her pocket and tied one end to the legs of the chair, she was really careful to hide it along the rung of the chair so it was really hard to see. She dropped the other end through the floor of the cabin, and we peeked outside to see if the coast was clear. While we were in there, Nancy had hung the sheet on a big nail outside the door. Edward probably hung his coal bucket on that high nail, or maybe his boots. But it was perfect for that sheet.
We ducked around the corner, slid down the hill to the back of the cabin where all the other girls were waiting. They had been busy too, lining up rocks and balls and pulling some bushes up behind them to hide us from the boy's line of vision. We had our ambush ready. All we needed were some boys.
Now we weren't really very quiet, we were silly giggling girls. We thought we were funny. We leaned back against our shrubs and waited. Eventually we heard the boys coming, and like all good soldiers, silence became our code. We waited. After a few minutes we could hear the boys coming up that hill. They were trying to outdo each other on their bikes, seeing who could go up the hill fastest. It looked to us like Kenneth was winning. There was a flat grassy jut out right beside the lower end of the cabin, and the boys dropped their bikes onto that area, then we could hear them stomping into the cabin. We lost sight of them right after they dropped the bikes. But we could hear them. I don't remember exactly what they were saying, but it was something about dumb girls and getting rid of us. Stupid stupid boys.
We waited for a few minutes and the boys settled in with their "important meeting", and we caught on that one of those "important things" was that Michael had stolen one of his dads magazines. We could hear the dead silence that went with concentration like that. Then the fun began downstairs.
Connie reached out and pulled the fishing line. It was supposed to make the chair wobble but the chair didn't move. We had no way of knowing if someone was in the chair, so Connie pulled a little harder. Nothing. On the next try, Connie gave that line a yank worthy of the biggest catfish catch in the state. That time the chair moved. It didn't just move, it crashed and slid across that floor. Dirt was falling into our hair through the cracks, we were giggling. We were trying to be quiet, so the giggling sounded ghostly, especially since we were tossing our rocks and the balls against the floor.
We could hear those boys yelling, and pardon the expression, screaming like girls. As Nancy and I took a peek toward the front, we see the boys running from the cabin. Kenneth was the last one out, and he slammed the door behind him. This dislodged that nifty white sheet. The sheet fell, landed on him, and he screamed and started fighting with it, yelling, "It's got me". Now our giggling is a little louder, there are a few snorts here and there, which made the perfect ghostly specter. Kenneth won the battle with the sheet, never realizing what it really was, and ran like a mad man down the little lane. None of the boys stopped for their bikes. They just ran.
We cleaned up the evidence and went down the other side of the mountain to Nancy's yard. They never mentioned the cabin to us, and we said nothing for a while. Then one of us asked them why they weren't in the cabin. Lonnie looked a little nervous, and then said, "We don't need a club house anymore. You can have it." Later that day we saw them sneaking up on that cabin to get their bikes back. I was wishing it would just yell, "Boo!"
And the girls got that cabin for the whole summer. We played Barbies, tuned in the transistor radio and planned our futures. We never did tell the boys what we had done until many years later. And it was still funny.
that is good stuff! great childhood memories!
you should write more often.... :yes:
thanks henry! i was thinking with all this time on my hands, maybe a book....even if it is just for my grands to enjoy
Good stuff, Damfast. You really should write that book!
Thanks Anne! I am glad you liked it!