It's a little bit quiet around here and I'm in a bad mood. Not because it's quiet--I don't really care about that--but because I have been yelled at by three strangers today. Actual yelling, with condescension and scattered sarcasm. What did I do to elicit the yelling? Thank you for asking. This is what I did: answered the telephone.

It was my work telephone, so none of the matters I faced were personal, nor did I have any involvement with the matters irritating the callers, but even so, that third caller pushed me to my limit, polite-voice-wise, and I allowed myself the pleasure of unleashing my two pathetic weapons, the Icy Tone and the Long Pause Indicating Deep Disdain.

The problem with these calls, which admittedly are few, is that they ALWAYS come to me by default, partly because members of the public don't know who in the company to call, so they head for my boss's office, and partly because everyone else in the firm knows that they can fob off calls on me and I'll feel guilty and try to help the caller, no matter how annoying he is. And they are ALL annoying.

The first call was from a woman who, the second I answered the phone, began yelling pretty much non-stop. The first fact she introduced, after her name, was that she worked for Christie's. I kept waiting for that fact to be reintroduced during her tirade, but it turned out to have zero relevance and had been mentioned solely in an attempt to impress me. (Failed!) Each time she started on a tirade, I put the phone down on my desk until the "wah-wah-WAH-wah" sounds stopped, then picked up the phone and said something neutral in my calmest voice. (Note: "I see" is always a good one, as it conveys no information whatsoever.)

The second call, from a deeply sarcastic and snide gentleman I'll call Rufus, concerned the fact that an employee of this firm had not returned his three phone calls from the previous day. Rufus yelled at me so much that I finally apologized on behalf of the employee--a twig-necked, pasty-faced soda straw with hair parted down the center, Orville Redenbacher style, whom I always want to slap, just to see if he's alive. My apology was met with an immediate, "Oh, you don't have to apologize--it's not YOUR fault." I responded with The Prolonged Pause, to indicate the concept, "Then why the fuck were you yelling at me?" I determined the person he should be speaking to, and sent him on his way.

The third call, the one that did it for me, was from a woman I'm guessing is clinically insane, who yelled at me non-stop because my company is "unfairly tormenting" an organization that Crazy Lady feels is beneficial to our community. I think she was eating like, a muffin, while she was yelling, becuase her voice had a slightly muffled, crumby sound. It could have been a bagel. She was abusive and loud and condescending, and although I really wanted to yell back at her, I just kept asking, in different ways, how she was connected to said organization (she wasn't), and telling her that really, to remedy the perceived problem, someone connected with the organization should contact our company and work out a solution. It was like:

Crazy Lady: I just think it's REPREHENSIBLE that you would go after this FINE ORGANIZATION that does so much GOOD in the community.

Me: [Extended pause]: I'm terribly sorry to hear this; how are you connected with the organization?

Crazy Lady: Well, I'm NOT, I'm just a good customer of theirs, and I think it's a CRYING SHAME, what you're doing.

Me: [Extended pause] I see. [Extended pause, to see how long it'll take her to start up again.]

Incidentally: my company is not doing ANYTHING to this organization. The lady's wacked. Whacked. However. She sounded drunk.

So, anyway, it's all stupid, but it made me want to put my head down on my desk and cry from the idiocy of it all, and especially that I was even momentarily drawn into arguments with people like that.

Since all these calls came in on my boss's telephone line, I made up a little poem to express my sentiments. It goes like this:

Answer your own
Fucking phone.

I am too irritated to tell the story of going to lunch with a dear friend, her new baby, and my coworker who says the word "baby" like "BRRRrrr---BAAAAAAAAAAAAA." You'll just have to imagine it for now. I don't have it in me.

I'm listening to the Silversun Pickups, which is the first high point of my day so far.

Star of the day. . .the Silversun Pickups