Parmigiano Reggiano

Yesterday was cold. The kind of cold that provokes the consumption of lots of hot beverages, the exclamations of "Sejuknya!" to the housemate, the wrapping of oneself in blankets, and staring out the sliding door, trying to figure out how many layers I would have to wear to convince myself to go outside(answer:three).

Another one of those telemarketers called. This one talked so fast, trying to get every word of his sales pitch in. For a second I considered (as I always do in these situations) just hanging up on the guy but as always, I never can quite bring myself to do that. I notice that whenever I'm on the phone with someone I am mad with I tend to hang up as quickly as possible, after a brisk "bye", so I suppose hanging up on someone with absolutely no warning or courtesy must be the equivalent of a "fuck you". I haven't mustered enough social rebellion to do that. So I stayed on the line and tried to find some moment I could interject and say I wasn't interested.

I couldn't get a word in, he was careening along the path of a much repeated script. I wondered how many times he must have been hung up on to get up to this speed.I thought to myself, who would want this job? This job that requires you to talk as fast as you can, grasping any extra minute the listener doesn't hang up to stuff as much information as possible, sell sell sell, convince me not hang up just a minute longer, with every minute maybe I'll eventually give in. Maybe the guy didn't have a choice, maybe the job has a good base salary and a decent commission for every customer snagged, maybe he's actually lucky to be doing this. Hey, the guy's actually working. Which was more than I could say for myself.

Suddenly things just seemed weary and sad, so I slumped on my bed, resigning myself to listen. In the background on his end I could hear another telemarketer, probably in the next cubicle, a woman this time. I wondered what the place he worked in was like, was it a call centre like in Slumdog Millionaire, a big room full of people with headsets? I settled myself more comfortably on my bed while letting out the occasional "uh-huh". I wondered what was the success rate of telemarketing.

It had to stop somewhere. In the end, as he was trying to get details from me, I told him thank you for taking the time to explain it to me, but I wasn't interested. I could still hear him trying to catch hold of me, trying to reiterate the benefits of the plan, as I said bye and put down the phone.

***

Every time I go to the market or the shops and pass the cheese aisle, I often resolve to one day save up or cut down on other groceries in order to buy a hunk of good parmesan cheese.

Yeah. I make cheese-based ambitions now.