Prank Callers

We have a prank call policy. My first store was pretty strict, no joking with the prank callers, just be professional and then hang up. The store I transferred to has a way better policy. That policy is that our job is to make them hang up on us, which usually involves making them so uncomfortable that they get off the line. Today I had the best prank call ever.

Caller: Hey, I have an emergency!
Me: What's up?
Caller: I need 12 boxes of dildos delivered to my house!
Me: (Playing it cool) Tsk, I'm so sorry, we don't do delivery.
Caller: ...Do you know who would?
Me: Hmm, you might try the store up the street.
Caller: (Clearly disappointed in how this is going for him) Okay, thanks.

And he hung up. I won the call, and quickly told a coworker about it, chuckling. After a few moments I turned to her and said, "Damn, I wish I'd thought to say we do deliveries and taken their address and stuff." She burst out laughing and immediately started coaxing me to call back. Unlike most prank calls, they hadn't bothered to block the number. On the promise of a crepe, I called them back.

Caller: Hello?
Me: Hey, this is STORE, you just called about the shipment of dildos?
Caller: (Trying to get back in character) Oh! Uh, yeah, my emergency.
Me: Yeah, well I talked to my manager and it turns out we CAN do a delivery, I just need your address and credit card number.
Caller: Can you get them to me tonight?
Me: No, sorry, the earliest we can get them delivered is next week. The total for 12 boxes of dildos is $1200.
Caller: $1200?! What kind of dildos are they?
Me: (At this point, I can hear the kid laughing, and it's hard to play it straight) They're standard 6" with balls, latex blend.

Caller: (Openly laughing) 6" with balls...
Me: So if you have an address and-
Click.

It was a stressful day, but this definitely made up for it.

Reaped

For a while, I was really into Dead Like Me. Eventually the novelty wore off, but for a few weeks, it was all I watched and I liked the concept a lot. You're about to die a violent death, so someone collects your soul so it's not traumatized and you get to pass on. Except that so often when the reapers are collecting souls they make the physical contact to collect it really awkward, like a long tender stroke on the arm or something.
     At my work it is incredibly uncommon for anyone to touch me. Even coworkers honestly, but the fact is if a guy set hands on us we'd kick him out. Most women are so nervous that they wouldn't dream of casual physical contact. I can count on one hand the number of times someone has set hands on me at work, all were women, and it was weird every time. Once a drunk lady grabbed my arm to share a joke with me and that was bad enough. But the worst was actually a super nice woman, who gave me the screaming heebie-jeebies. When I was talking to her she was very soft spoken and sweet, listening attentively, never interrupting, and asking relevant questions. And then before she left, for seemingly no reason, she reached out to stroke my arm. It was gentle, and not actually creepy in a "she's hitting on me" way, it was  like a soft farewell. I immediately panicked and rushed over to a coworker. I asked her if she'd ever seen Dead Like Me, and she said no, so in rapid fire bursts I explained the concept and my absolute conviction that the woman had just collected my soul and death was imminent for me.
     It took days for the panic to ease off and for me to admit that maybe the woman just had a really calm sad sort of way of bidding people farewell, but it was a few weeks before I stopped looking over my shoulder or up at the sky for the random shooter or falling piano.

Relaxing

     I know this isn't a new phenomenon, but that moment when you're trying to calm down or relax before bed and your imagination runs away from you. For instance: trying to sleep and I keep tossing and turning and think, I can just visualize myself to relaxation. I think, calm as the ocean, but then immediately question myself. The ocean isn't calm, it's always moving. Okay then, breaths like wavelets lapping the shore. For a little while my breathing is slow and even. But then I wonder if the tide is coming in, and the waves start getting bigger and faster and my breathing follows suit. Soon I can see a giant wave forming on the horizon, and storm clouds are boiling in to shore. Finally I'm laying in bed wide eyed having survived an apocalyptic storm. Scavenging for bread I wonder if soon I'll have to eat the bloated corpses of farm animals and what were once house pets. When I finally get to sleep my dreams are all horrifyingly graphic scenes of deciding whether to eat a rat or a cat raw since there's no dry wood for a fire and rolling blackouts abound.