Hello,
You were my first.
My normal reaction is to listen. To let people do their jobs. To give you my best ear when you pick up the phone to cold call and soft sell the hard sale.
But I was working. And I thought you were someone else. The vague idea from caller idea was that you may have been a business call; a publisher, a magazine, a book buyer. I’m a type of writer and I thought you were good news.
But then you said God Bless You, Sir even though I hadn’t sneezed once while listening to you. Said god bless you while trying to get me to donate to the FOP. Said god bless you like it was a comma.
I wouldn’t have hung up on you but I didn’t have the time, this time. I was given an hour to write and you’d already eaten 3 minutes by the time I cut the cord. See, I had my own work to do and I thought when I answered you were someone else. You began to speak faster and without pause. So I looked at my hourglass and looked at the page and looked at the phone and decided one of them had to be stopped. I chose you, quick as a sneeze, to be the one that got the axe. God bless you, I thought, as you said the same mid stride and mid thought, not knowing the call was about to drop.