When I was in college, Virg used to walk into the dorm room and find me on the phone, answering a telemarketing survey. Once he figured out what I was doing, he would give me this look and pantomime cutting the guy off, but I would just smile and keep answering. Virg would putter around the room for a bit, shake his head at me in bemusement, and head for the floor’s TV lounge. He’d come back 20 minutes later and I’d still be answering questions.
My dirty little secret: When I got a call from these guys back in college (when I had all the time in the world to waste), I would make up elaborate answers to every. single. question they asked me. Unless someone was in the room. When there was someone there, I answered everything straight.
Telemarketer: Which do you prefer, sourdough bread or rye bread.
Me: That’s sort of a funny thing. When I was younger, like, early high school, and my dad still lived with us — this was before he went to prison — he would make me smuggle drugs for him across the Mexico border. You don’t have to write any of this down and report it or anything… the cops already know.
TM: Um… okay.
Me: Anyway, I would have to carry these big loaves of bread and stuff over the border back to the US in the plane. The bread was sourdough in these big long loaves, like French bread, except it was sourdough, and of course there were Baggies of cocaine and stuff baked into it, so it wasn’t really much like French bread. So I’d sit this bag between my legs for the flight and this amazing bread smell would fill the area around my seat. I got so hungry for this bread. Everyone did. People would ask me if I could share some of this great bread, and I’d have to tell them that I couldn’t because it was for my grandmother from her sister in Mexico. They always thought that made me such a good kid…
TM: [long pause] Sir?
Me: Oh, right. Um anyway, the bread smelled great, or the cocaine leaked out through the steam or something and I got to where I was just dying for this bread, but when I got it back to the house, my dad would tear the loaves open, pull out the drugs, and just throw all the rest of the bread out. So I guess I’d have to say Sourdough.
TM: [a long pause as he realized he’d gotten an answer] So… Sourdough?
Me: Sourdough.
[door opens, Virg comes in]
Him: Hey. *
Me: Hey. * [to the phone] My roommate just came in.
TM: If you need to go…
Me: Nah, that’s fine.
TM: [silent sigh] Alright. Do you prefer filled or unfilled doughnuts?
Me: Filled.
TM: [Pause while he waits for the story.] Umm… okay. Do you prefer cream filling or custard filling in doughnuts.
Me: Cream.
[Virg is giving me looks and telling me to hang up.]
TM: Do you prefer clear icing or chocolate icing on doughnuts.
Me: Umm… chocolate.
TM: [getting confident] Do you prefer Sprinkles or no sprinkles?
Me: No sprinkles.
[Virg heads out, I tell him “later.”]
TM: Excuse me?
Me: My roommate left.
TM: I… see.
Me: What’s the next question?
TM: Do you normally get an assortment of doughnuts, or a dozen of the same type?
Me: Wow. What a flashback. That takes me right back to living with my aunt’s step mom in Pasadena when I was five. My folks were both hiding in Canada at the time…
TM: [Sobbing on co-worker’s shoulder.]
---
I miss Virg. I miss college.
* — The WB runs this show ‘Felicity’, which is basically just ‘the college years’ of any other young-adult drama you can think of, except the dialogue is pretty good, and the storylines are alright — I like one of the actors quite a bit. J.J. Abrams is also writing “Alias” for ABC, which is a pretty DAMN good show. Anyway, the show’s coming back on for the Series Finale run of about 10 episodes, right in mid-season, like it usually does. The ads for the show are just a black screen with every character in the show greeting each other by saying “hey”. The accuracy of using those ‘heys’ is both a comment on the show and about the years that the show depicts, or about the generation the show depicts, maybe — if I can flatter myself and loosely lump my 31-year-old self in with that generation of 20-somethings, which is pretty generous of me.
