One of the most debatable points about the lifestyle you have chosen to lead is this: What is the most difficult thing to deal with? Some would say the isolation or lack of furniture, others might say the way you got screwed in the divorce, while some might say the endless pursuit of a pointless and unachievable dream.

Truth is, that’s the easy shit. And in terms of difficulty, there really is no way to pinpoint it. Everything you deal with is difficult to some degree -- especially the isolation, because it has forced you to develop a special language that you share with your cat. After all, the cat seems to be the only decent, rational life form you come across on a daily basis, and its important to be able to communicate with such a close friend. Consequently, the cat is no longer called Squeezie or Mr. Jumbles or even James Todd Smith -- now he’s Reen-tin or Meaty-Meantin or Soda Pop Curtis. And he responds to this new language the way any cat would, with a detached sort of contempt, followed by quick bursts of hunger and cyclical shitting, a process you have defined as “staying gold.”

This is a fine way to communicate, and you should not feel ashamed you baby talk a creature that doesn’t understand any goddamn thing you say, whether you are using this new language or reading passages from your manuscript (in English, I might add) for his approval. The problem with this new form of language arises about the same time every day: when you clock in at your monkey fuck around.

Here’s why.

You work at a call center for affordable housing. This could mean apartments, actual houses, or even trailers. Generally people would call you, but not here. Your job is to make sales calls, which is to say, you call people at home, to offer them a new home. Which makes sense, in a way. Especially if you think the phone script you have to read is the greatest thing since Fitzgerald’s fresh green breast.

It isn’t, of course. But we should have a word about the phone script anyway, which is trite, poorly written, and sounds like robotic nonsense when it spills from your mouth. You’ve tried to get around it a thousand times, but when you veer from the script your supervisor magically appears over your shoulder and stares you down until you get back on course. You’ve rewritten the bastard a dozen times when your Hot Sheet has been completed for the day. And you’ve even thought about taking these rewrites to your supervisor, saying something like: “Listen, man, I’m a writer, okay? And I’ve found a way to make this puppy sing!”

You’ve yet to do that.

Instead you do your job, cold-calling people and reading the awful thing…

A gruff and annoyed voice answers: “Hello?”

“Hello, and thank you for choosing Ann Arbor Management. My name is Trevor, how may I help you?”

There’s a slight pause. “But, you called me.”

“I realize this, and I want to thank you again for choosing Ann Arbor Management. May I ask your name please?”

Again, another slight pause. This is the supposed genius of the phone script. It dazes people just long enough to try the sales pitch. “Uh… Bobby.”

“Hello, Bobby. My name is Trevor. How is your day going so far?”

There is an indefinite pause this time, but you imagine the person shrugging on the other end.

“Great, now let me ask you this: what’s most important to you in your new home?”

“What is this about?”

“I was wondering what was the most important feature you look for in a new home.”

“No thanks, I already got a home.”

“Well, is the lady of the house available? I’d love the opportunity to speak with her.”

“I am the lady of the house!”

You’re used to this kind of reaction, but you still can’t shake the phrase going through your mind. It pops up automatically, anytime someone hangs up on you or calls you an asshole or generally sounds disinterested. The phrase is a repeater, which kind of sounds and looks like the ding-dong song from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, going faster and faster and faster:

What A Waste Of Time
What A Waste oftime.
Whata Waste oftime.
Whatawaste oftime.
Whatawasteoftime.
Whatawasteoftime.

So, you decide to shake it up a bit, ignoring the Hot Sheet while you think no one is looking. The number is memorized, though technically you’re even supposed to have the damn thing. It rings only twice and the voice that answers makes you want to cry:

“Hello, and thank you for choosing Ann Arbor Management, my name is Trevor, how may I help you today?”

The pause is really long this time; three times longer than the man-thing voice from a few minutes ago. And the pause gives you just enough time to ponder saving your dignity, to just hang up and let it go.

Yeah, you’ve yet to do that either.

Finally the voice returns, and it sounds like it did on so many occasions, disappointed and vanquished. “You remember what the judge said, don’t you? You need a <b>reason</b> to call. What’s your reason?”

This time, you pause. You have to. The heartbreak in her voice is still there. It was always the most difficult thing to handle near the end. The fact that you had let someone down who depended on you, that you cared more about your dreams than hers, that you never even asked what her goddamned dreams were.

“I realize this, and I want to thank you again for choosing Ann Arbor Management, may I ask your name please?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Hello ------, my name is Trevor. How is your day going so far?”

Her voice cracks a little, but she holds it in. “You have to move on, you can’t keep--”

“Great, now let me ask you this: what’s most important to you in your new home?”

Now she can’t hold it in. It doesn’t come in the form of a sob, just a sniffle, and you know she’s doing the silent-cry-thing that almost always signaled the end of arguments. You never could stand the silent-cry-thing. “Why are you doing this to me?” Her voice is definitely cracking now. “Why do you make me feel like this?”

You know she’s getting ready to hang up. You go into panic mode. You don’t know why you even called in the first place, but you still panic. You’re afraid of losing her though she’s already lost. You blurt out the first thing you think of: “That’s my Prink-ton!”

“What?”

“Hello, my Reent! That’s my print! Bubba-duh-reeno! Prince-ton!”

“Why?” she asks quietly. Then screams, “What do you want from me!”

“All I want is my Creenk-ston! My Bubba-Minkston!”

The line goes dead, but you listen to the dial tone for a while. It’s settling. It calms you down. It’s ten in the morning, but you’re already exhausted. You can’t even fathom making it to the printer’s after work to discuss options, let alone making it to lunch. You think you might actually be killing yourself.

Nah, not really. You’re just trying to self-publish.