Usually the calls I get at work are from PR people or people who want to know how to list an event fairly benign. Sometimes, though, I get a doozy.
This woman called a couple of months ago to tell me that the man who was featured in Everyone’s a Critic that week (I have nothing to do with that feature, but I got the call and handled it so as to take one for the team) was a man who’s been abusing LiveLinks for years. She told me that it says his name’s Javier but it’s really Jose or something and he doesn’t live in Squirrel Hill and isn’t really 25 and a grad student. (This was false; I actually happened to KNOW the guy who was in Critic that week and his name IS Javier and he is a grad student and a nice guy.)
Anyway, she went on for about 10 or 15 minutes that day about how he’s bad to women and takes advantage of them, and she’s a good Christian and doesn’t understand why these things happen to her, and we should print a retraction because he’s probably showing all the women that he was in the newspaper and impressing them with that. I honestly didn’t say ANYTHING the whole time — every time she’d pause, I’d say, “Do you have anything else to say?” and she’d start again. I’d keep listening then eventually she worked herself up to the point where she hung up on me, and I gave a sigh of relief.
Yesterday she called again. I knew it was her as soon as she started because, like last time, she was rude from the very greeting –
Andy: Hello, this is Andy.
Crazy: Yeah, I can barely hear ya. Hey, this listing, in your paper, in this listing it says Sunday, September 1, and September 1 is a Saturday.
Andy: Where is this, what page?
Crazy: IN YOUR NEWSPAPER.
Andy: I know. What PAGE?
Crazy: Oh, I don’t know, I don’t have it in front of me, I just . . .
Andy: Okay, well, there aren’t any listings in there for things going on on September 1. We list events a week at a time.
Crazy: Well it says SUNDAY September 1 and September 1 is a SATURDAY. Look at your calendar! Isn’t that true?
Andy: That’s true, but I don’t know what listing you’re talking about.
Crazy: You’re just a dummy, aren’t you? You shouldn’t even be working there-
Andy: Well, that’s true . . .
Crazy: You’re a bunch of dummies there *click*