Why won't the robots stop calling?

I don't mind telemarketers. I'd be hypocritical if I thought otherwise, as I work in a call center.

But at the very least have a human call me. Don't send me a fucking pre-recorded message. Does that even work? Ever? I can't imagine you see a lot of success with machines calling people.

I have to pull my jimmy out of the glory hole in an effort to answer the phone in case it's some sort of emergency; only to find out that someone recorded a message to play to me upon answering. Do you realise how rare it is that I am able to convince my wife make the beast with two backs with me?!? I can't be wasting precious time like that by answering the fucking phone and NOT EVEN BEING ABLE TO SAY "Hey, I can't talk right now because I'm having sex."

That's the best part about telemarketers, by the way; bragging to complete strangers.
But all of that is lost on a fucking machine that is playing a fucking pre-re-fucking-corded message!

Maybe I would appreciate the pre-recorded messages more if I was lonlier. But I'm not quite that lonely.

Wait... Are these calls coming from the same people as the automated commenters that I have blocked with the "type these letters" system? Are you that desperate to get in touch with me? I miss you too, guys. I miss your complements on the design of my blog and your random links to porn. Perhaps you could work the porn thing into your messages that you call me with? I think that would be great. Hope to talk to you soon!

A page from Ducky Park

While you are disappointed that you can't run one of the roller coasters, you have to admit that it is pretty cool to run one of the rides, even if it is only a choice between bumper cars and the thing with the horses.

"I guess I'll do the thing where the horses go around in the circles," You tell him, doing your best not to sound too disappointed about the roller coaster thing.

"It's called a carousel, boy," He informs you.

"Right," you say; "The Carousel."

He nods approvingly. "That's where I started. Maybe you can work your way up through the ranks and be like me."

"I hope not," You say aloud, purely on accident. You immediately regret saying it and your face flushes red with embarrassment.

Thankfully Jake seems good humored; he laughs about it and slaps you on the shoulder. "You're a funny guy," He says, leaning on too close to say it, the liquor on his breath combined with the fumes from his poor oral hygiene nearly make you gag.

"Oh man," You say, "Could you not lean in so close when you’re talking to me?!"

"Sorry about that," He says to you, with a good humored smile on his dirty face. "My breath ain't the freshest, I know it."

"You're not kidding either, man. What the fuck do you do? Gargle with diarrhea? Damn!"

He laughs a little more and tells you how to get to the carousel. He tells you to send who ever is working there to him to be reassigned after he trains you for an hour or so.

You thank him and walk off in the direction he indicated. You're not sure why you're following his directions, you know exactly where the horse thingy is, but you figure that if he went through the trouble of pointing out a path for you to follow, you ought to follow it.

Your way would have been much quicker though.

You reach the thing with the horses that go around in circles and walk up to the guy operating the ride. He greets you warmly enough and you tell him what Jake told you to say. The guy practically hugs you, a huge smile spreads across his face and he thanks you over and over.

"I'm just so sick of this ride," He confides in you. "It's the same thing every time, around and around in slow circle after slow circle. I'm so glad you're replacing me."

You don't really know what to say to that, so you just kind of stare at him with a slack jaw.

The ride ends.

"OK, let me show you how you do this," He tells you. You follow him as he first walks over to the gate and opens it, then goes to help some of the kids who need help, get down. The kids all run to their parents who wait at the fence, and eventually the ride empties of all the kids.

He lights up a cigarette and stands there with you in silence.

"Now what," You ask after standing there for some time.

"Now we wait for a line to form and I can show you how to start the ride." He says, sighing deeply. "Man, I can't wait 'till I'm done training you on this. I really fucking hate this ride. I mean, it doesn't even draw a crowd. How many fucking rides are there that you have to wait for a line to start before it will run?"

"I don't know," You tell him.

"None," He replies, "This is the only fucking ride like that in the park. Except for Little Ducks, the kiddie area."

You stand in silence for some time, uncomfortable with the absence of conversation, you decide to introduce yourself. "My name is Ricky by the way," You say to him, holding out a hand for him to shake.

"Chris," He says, shaking your hand briefly. "You know what else pisses me off about this thing? No babes."

"No babes?" You ask.

"That's right," He says, hitting his cigarette deeply before continuing; "There's no fucking babes. You know how many chicks ride the coasters? Tons. And the water rides? Man, the guys that run the water rides have it lucky. There's always a hot dingbat who decided to wear a white shirt with no bra underneath.

"But the only babes you'll get on this ride are moms. Foxy moms. They're all right to look at, but when it comes right down to it, they're moms. They have kids and probably have husbands.

"Other than hot moms, the only babe you'll see on this ride is this blond chick who gets on the carousel once a week. She's gorgeous, perfect body, great rack, hot ass, and the most beautiful pouty lips you'll ever see."

He hits his cigarette again.

"Then what's the problem?" You ask.

"She's fucking retarded. Seriously. Mentally challenged. Not "slow learner" retarded or "acts like an idiot" retarded. Really, genuinely retarded. She picks her nose and eats the boogers and shit. They dethawed cavemen with more extensive vocabularies. It's a damn shame, too. She's a hot number. And her big body builder brother is always around, so you can't even try to take advantage of her."

"Damn," You say.

"Yeah," He replies, flicking his cigarette into the bushes behind the ride. "Looks like we got a line forming," he says.

You follow him to the entrance gate where two kids stand waiting. A third kid stands there with his mom, who urges him to get on the carousel.

"See what I mean?" Chris whispers to you.

"Yeah," You whisper back, "Any other ride and that kid would be begging to get on."

"No, I mean the moms," He says, "Look at the rack on her. Holy shit would I love to suck the milk from her teet."

You look at him like he's deranged... Mostly because you think he's deranged. "You're a sick bastard," You tell him.

"I know," He says. "But I'm on to better things soon, thanks to you."

The mom wins and the kid walks with his head bowed in shame towards the ride.

"Do you need help getting on one of the big horsies?" Chris asks him.

"Shut up, mister and start the ride," The kid retorts.

"We need four more kids before the ride can start, kid. Go pick your stupid horse so your mommy can see you ride around on it."

"Was that necessary?" You ask him.

"Hey Ricky, I don't go trying to tell you how to look stupid, so don't start trying to tell me how to treat the snot nosed little brats that get on my ride." He responds curtly.

"If no one else shows up after two or three minutes," He tells you, continuing with his lesson, "you tell that the carousel is about to start and that'll usually draw a few people."

"And if it doesn't?" You ask.

"If it doesn't you wait a couple more minutes and start it without them." He tells you.

"Ah," You reply, taking this information in.

Chris walks to the gate and cups his mouth with his hands. "Last call for the carousel!!" He hollers for all to hear.

One more kid comes straggling in.

"All right," Chris says to you, "Let's start this ancient bitch up eh?"

You follow him to the platform with the control switch on it and he shows you how to start the ride by moving a lever. He explains that it's on a timer, so you won't have to stop it, but in case of emergency he shows you the manual brake.

You notice a little knob beside the start lever and ask about it.

"Don't worry about that thing. It controls the speed. If you touch it, Jake will have your ass."

You help him start the ride twice before he parts company with you; wishing you luck. You wish him the same and wait for the kids to show up for the next ride. Somehow you imagined running a ride would be more exciting...

You go through the motions for a little over an hour, running the carousel four times for close to twenty kids. Chris was right, you decide, the carousel is a big pain in the ass.

At around five o'clock, however, a beautiful blonde catches your eye. She has a grin on her face that speaks volumes of happiness, and a body like the girls in the magazines your father keeps under his bed. She wears a plain dress and runs to the carousel with an overwhelming amount of excitement.

She runs up to the carousel and picks a horse, leaping up to straddle it. As she gets aback the horse, you cannot help but note the bareness of her ass beneath the dress. It doesn't appear that this foxy young temptress is wearing any panties at all. She looks up at you and smiles. You wonder if she caught you looking.

She makes only the second passenger on the carousel, so you know you have time to kill before more arrive and you have to start the ride. You want to go talk to her, but you're not really sure if she'll like you. You are a dipshit, after all.

Do you stand where you are and wait for more kids or go talk to her?




Interested in reading more? Ducky Park

Why I won't go to zoo's anymore

I was attacked by a flamingo at a local zoo. Fearing for my life, I whipped out my pocket knife and slit its throat. Thankfully no one was around to witness the incident, so I planted the knife in the monkey cages and ran out of the zoo to my car and drove home.

Later that night; I saw on the news that a monkey had found a knife and gone on a killing spree.

I can’t help but feel guilty about it.

Inspiration comes in the strangest of places

I've been rather blocked in my writing lately. I've had a couple new starts to novels (and posted both of them here), but I can't seem to continue with them right now.

But last night I had that feeling again. That feeling that I haven't felt in years. Inspiration.

And it's not just one of the usual moments of inspiration where I can write a few pages and then get stuck again, it;s the kind that pops into my head at every chance it can.

Our dryer broke at home and I have to go to the laundromat to take care of drying the clothes for the time being.

So there I am, sitting in a virtually empty laundromat while this mentally retarded couple is on the other side of the place conversing. I'm a bit of a people watcher, I enjoy taking in mannerisms and personalities; and these two were really entertaining.

As I sit there I start to think that the laundromat wouldn't be such a bad setting for a play. And then the wheels started turning.

I've always said that the laundromat where we dry our clothes should have an arcade machine in it, PacMan or Galaga or Donkey Kong, whatever just something real simple. They'd make a mint. But I degress.

In the vision in my head there is a Galaga machine there. But no one really plays it. One day a new guy starts using the laundromat; he's a studly and charismatic guy who is only temporarily drying his laundry there because his dryer recently broke down. Anyway, he starts playing Galaga. He is at first pissed off that there is no option to continue, but that just makes the high score even more significant. He tries and tries but can't seem to break the high score.

Till one day when he does. Suddenly the phone starts ringing. If you've ever had to use a laundromat then you understand how awkward the ringing phone can be. No one knows if they should answer it or not and generally the people end up just staring it down until it stops ringing or someone actually picks it up.

Well this one doesn't stop ringing and eventually someone answers it.

They answer it to hear nothing but static, or maybe the little song that Galaga makes when you get a perfect score on the 'challengin stages'. Anyway, after the little song (cause I think that's what I'm going with now) one of the unused dryers starts running real loud-like; it sounds like a belt is broken and the thing is about to break down. And then it stops and a bright light beams out from it.

When the dryer is opened, white light encompasses them all and they experience the greatest joys they have ever known. They revert to childhood or something similar, who knows - I think I'll keep it a mystery anyway. Afterwards they all want to go back.

Beating the high score becomes an obsession for them. They almost fiend for it. In comparison to that one devine moment of thier lives everything else has become mundane.

That's basically all I got. I have a few characters in mind, one of which is a crazy and slightly retarded guy that everyone thinks is nutty, but friendly. It appears this guy has the original high score on the Galaga game, and (we find out later) is crazy because he wants so desperately to experience the divinity that comes from getting the high score. But he has never been able to reach that level again and stopped trying, waiting and hoping that someone else could beat the score.




I know that's all a bit scattered, but that's what I have so far.

(any ideas for a witty title?)