The Phonecall Menace, Part I

    Let’s cut to the chase. Now that I have two things to do, I have been really busy.  I didn’t even post an update last Friday. That would have been a third thing to do, and that’s where I draw the line.

    When I told you about my time at Dairy Queen, it kind of gave me a wake up call. It was the first time I realised how much I’d been neglecting my job search. Since then, I’ve been hard at work trying to find work. Of course, that now means I’m neglecting my wife search.

    Unfortunately, what I’ve been discovering is that this is a hard time to find a job. I guess it has something to do with the economy or somesuch. It doesn’t seem to matter who you are or what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter what your skills or qualifications are. You’ve got to take what you can get, and all I seem to able to get is a lot of “We’re not hiring right now.”

    One afternoon,  I sat alone in a Dairy Queen I‘d never been to before. There was a newspaper on my table that they‘d carelessly forgotten to clear away. That would have never happened if I‘d worked there, by the way. I started flipping through it, and an incredible revelation was made unto me.

    I don‘t know how many of you know about this, but in many papers, deep between the top stories and the sports pages, an entire section is devoted to classified ads. You can find things to buy and sell, escort agencies, real estate, and all kinds of other stuff. It makes for interesting reading, but wasn’t particularly relevant to my current situation. Or, it wouldn‘t have been, except that there is also a bunch of what they call “employment opportunities“. Someone, somewhere, must be watching out for me. I looked skyward and made little kissy noises.

    I started collecting every paper I could find. I couldn’t leave them lying around where just anybody could make the same discovery as I had. It seemed to be working, too. I noticed how the ads stay the same day after day. How is that possible if people are reading them and getting hired? If that was the case, wouldn’t they have the ads removed? I had stumbled onto some great, untapped resource, and it was all mine to exploit.

    As soon as I started calling numbers, my enthusiasm for the classified ads kind of… crashed and burned. Even here, in my secret cache of job listings, I still couldn’t find someone who would hire me. Then I found an ad by a company called Anonymous Consumers.

    It is a mystery shopper company. They’re those guys who you hire to go into your business, masquerading as regular customers, but all the while, secretly evaluating employee performance. It’s quite insidious, but I couldn‘t afford to be choosy. So I went down to their office and turned in a resume. In defiance of my well eroded expectations, I got my best response yet. They told me that they would be in touch by Sunday.

    It wasn’t until Thursday, having received no calls, that I started to feel the faintest pangs of anxiety. But they were faint, and I willfully allowed optimism to override my doubts. As it turned out, that optimism was unwarranted, because I didn’t get a call. On Friday, I didn’t feel any optimism at all, and this was well justified. I didn’t get a call on that day, either.

    On Saturday, anxiety reigned supreme. I filled the hours by learning origami. But no quantity of paper tigers could stave off the growing despair, even though there wasn’t any real reason to lose hope just yet. A whole other day remained before the time had elapsed. I found as much comfort in rationalizations as I had in the paper folding. I had already convinced myself that, if they were going to call, it would have happened already.

    So it was that Sunday found me lazing about, intending to accomplish nothing but wait by the phone. If I became hungry, I would not order a pizza. If I became on fire, I would not call 911. The line would stay clear, so that nothing would get in the way of my receiving this call. I drifted off and dreamt about a sexy butterfly woman who wanted me to tend her gardens for room and board.

    The knock came at the door for a second time before I’d fully comprehended that I’d heard it the first time. I stood up, examined myself to make sure I wasn’t wearing sweatpants, and opened the door.

    Dressed in a dark suit, a portly, red eyed man stood there. Tall hair and trim beard were all nearly the same pale white colour of his skin. He also appeared to be drenched. I wondered if it might be raining. He posed a query to me.

    “ Hi there. Say, listen. My car broke down a half block up and, well, I guess what I‘m trying to say is, could I borrow your phone?”