The scene is My Workplace. The day is Friday. The time is Some Time After Lunch And Before The End Of The Shift. The pervading sense of mood is Crazy. Enter four of my co-workers and myself, waiting (im)patiently for another Friday to leave us in its dust, and thus plop us down happily staring another weekend, yes! smack in the face. Suddenly, a discussion centering around telephone etiquette pet peeves ensues.

Kerri’s inner monologue(think raspy, 1920’s detective voice): It all started when I announced, with a rosemary olive oil Triscuit in my mouth (Yes, that’s right, a new brand of Triscuits! And I loove them! That’s loove, with two o’s.), that I think we should all call up our own providers’ offices to talk with them, but only after recently taking a bite of something (the crunchier the better) and then proceed to promptly chew in their ears, thereby sufficiently driving them crazy as we have all been driven crazy by those who insist on chomping their chow in our ears. Because chewing in someone’s ear while they are trying to extract pertinent information from you, while they are attempting to provide a specialized service for you, and after You Who Are Aware Of When You Are Going To Place Food In Your Mouth have called them, is just plain wrong. Have I done it before? Heck yes. Is it every bit as annoying as Ashlee Simpson’s singing voice when I do? You know it is.

So my obnoxious rendition of Susie Chews A Lot in Your Ear When SHE Calls YOU, And Couldn’t She Had Just Waited A Moment And Called IN BETWEEN Bites?, sparked a slur of comments regarding other odd consumer phone behavior. The conversation went a little something like this: (Note: Names have been changed to protect the hilarious, and also to ensure that if we need to we can all deny that we ever had this conversation. Just kidding. But seriously, I’ve got them in the back. )

Pollyanna: You know what I love? Hearing the toilet flush mid-way through our conversation. I mean, really? Do I NEED to know that you are dropping a load while calling me?

Rosemary: Or how about when they call and they are so high that they don’t even realize they’ve dialed a number? No, we don’t have pizza here. Nope, no tacos either.

Olive (Oil): My favorite is when they call with the T.V./radio/kids screaming so loud right next to them that they are now screaming in my ear, and then I notice I’m screaming too, because they can’t hear me unless I’m screaming, and then I realize: I am contributing to the madness.

Then Maude chimes in from the corner: I had someone call me from their bathtub once.

Kerri’s inner monologue: Yikes. Perhaps I would try using the phone while taking a bath, but I can’t even remember the last time I took a bath. And besides, I’m afraid of sitting down on the Seventies-inspired taupe color that is our bathtub. I’m all for living dangerously, but that is just plain gross.

The scene ends with Olive (Oil) and Rosemary discussing and eating the Triscuits sharing their namesakes while Maude stares whimsically at the giraffe-shaped ceramic mug sitting on her desk. Meanwhile Kerri, who has discovered that singing her sentences instead of speaking them works superbly to keep herself entertained, fills the air with her stunning, only slightly off-key, vocal talent.