HOLDING FOR DOLLARS

Yes, that was probably me calling you about that invoice. The one for $1,024.95 which is now TWO MONTHS past-due. We want it paid.
Surely you can understand that?

I know you can!

And I really did enjoy little Jennifer answering the phone. I know you hire your staff because they are entertaining, or leastways ‘non-threatening’. Your customers are shy creatures and easily scared. It was so very amusing when she dropped the phone while taking a message. I’m truly sorry I said things that made her cry. Teenagers are SO fragile. Kiss her for me, and pat her on her shiny little head – there there, little one, everything is all right!

All right?

I hope she gets over the trauma; I wouldn’t want her first boyfriend to come stalking me.
Give her another bonbon.

No, I really don’t mind being on hold. While I’m waiting for you to emerge from your office, I’ll just fondle a piece of wood. It’s a Peterson pipe with a two-tone finish (a billiard shape, straight, tapered stem, with a shiny nickel band). An aesthetic experience, very comforting to the senses. Probably much more so than that bottle of Bourbon you hurriedly shoved back into the desk drawer when little Jennifer knocked and told you I was on line.
I knew if I called you three times before lunch I’d finally get a hold of you.

Stop drinking that cheap Bourbon. Real men drink Scotch.

A good piece of briar is quite the touchy-feely adventure. Erotic even.

I can fax the invoice, or e-mail it. I would prefer to e-mail it, I know you’re on the computer all day. I just tell myself that the internet exists for five things: recipes, pornography, kitten pictures, anti-Semitic ranting, and hunting down where you live and which sites you visit. Oh, and e-mailing you a complete list of what you owe us.
Your entire past is on line. I know which school you graduated from, your five last known addresses, where your parents live (so sorry about their divorce), the girl whose sister you married......

Did you know that little Jennifer put those embarrassing pictures from the "office" party on her myspace page? You and that Bourbon, my my my!

Thank you SO MUCH for saying that I should be in movies or on the radio! Yeah, other customers have said the same thing. Perhaps if I ever get off my duff I’ll make a demo tape and send it to a voice-agency.

[It’s probably the sensuous feel of the briar that I am slowly stroking while talking to you – it gentles my tone. Soothes the savage beast, as it were, and mellows the growl.]


SURE I’LL HOLD!


There are at least four more pipes on my desk I haven’t fondled yet. And some nice pipe-tobacco I have yet to sniff. Mmmm, gooooooood! Meanwhile, put little Jennifer on the line again. I am here to be entertained.