Home Phone

I am so busy it’s ridiculous. I just got done with my list of work to do today. It is 1 a.m. I will now make a list of the stuff I have to do tomorrow. Days are slipping by, very quickly, as if they are taunting me with how few of them are left before I am forced to know what the hell I am talking about in front of people both live and through the TV. Lord help me.

Today we ordered a video camera for the documentary that we will be shooting as I skyrocket to fame or plummet to defeat. Either way, it might be worth watching. Perhaps in a train wreck sort of way. We shall see.

If the trip goes anything like the camera purchasing went, I feel as though we might be in trouble.

My Camera Guy got on the phone to order the camera. We had to get it ordered by 1 so that we could catch the overnight delivery and have the camera ASAP (funny thing: it’s hard to shoot a documentary without a camera (small but rather significant (and expensive) detail)) I was paying for the camera with my credit card even though I wasn’t the one on the phone. This was all very confusing to the Camera Seller Guys. They did not like that the phone number we were calling from did not match the phone number on the credit card. Then when I got on the phone and told them my phone number they said that was not the right phone number either. Then they rambled off some other phone number. A phone number I’d never heard of in all my days. I happened to be sitting at my desk though, and I looked up at my phone bill and saw that this number he was rambling off was actually my home phone number. I don’t actually use my home phone number for anything other than DSL, so I have no need to know it. The number has never been used on any of the million credit things I’ve ever filled out, but this guy seemed dead set on convincing me that this was my primary number.

My patience level was not up for any further conversation with this man, so I handed him back to Camera Guy. Then the two of them went around and around for another half hour trying to figure out how we could possibly do the impossible task of ordering something and putting it on a credit card. Camera Guy came into my office and said, “He needs to call your home phone to confirm that this is really you.” At this point I lost what some refer to as “my cool”. I think I got “hot”. We had to get this camera ordered and I had purchased my condo in less time than it was taking for this man to process one simple order.

I started cussing quite a bit. Because, you see, I don’t have a phone for him to call. I mean, I think I have one somewhere, I think my mom gave me one. But who the hell knows where it ended up in my “organization” of the house? The “organization” really only consisted of my stuffing things into various cabinets and drawers so that the house looked “organized”. So really, the phone could be in with my spare toothbrushes and salt shakers, for all I know. The only thing I know for sure is that this Camera Sales Guy was a friggin’ moron and it was ridiculous that he had to call a number that is not anywhere on anything having to do with my name or credit cards.

I opened and shut things VERY LOUDLY as I made rational and well-worded expressions of my feelings about this whole process. When I looked up I saw that Camera Guy was gone and was hiding in another room.

A bit later Camera Sales Guy decided that it would be okay if he just called my cell phone. You know, the number that everyone in the world has for me. When he called he said, “Don’t be mad, I’m just trying to do my job.” Future reference Camera Sales Guy: Telling a mad person not to be mad? Pretty much guaranteed to have the opposite effect than the one that you are going for. Just a word to the wise.

Finally, after a rather short conversation, full of nothing but sunshine and love, Camera Sales Guy was able to put our order through. He told Camera Guy that if there were any problems he would, “Call you guys back. I mean I’ll call YOU back, not her.”

Damn straight.

Then we got two receipts and confirmation of two orders being shipped to us, instead only one that we actually ordered and paid for. If we get two cameras, I’m selling one. If the Camera Sales People have a problem with that, they can just give me a call on my home phone.