Electrical fire

‘Hello?’
‘Hey it’s Ioju’
‘Oh hi. How was your train ride home?’
I began to explain to my friend over the phone what had happened.
‘Really? You sure it was that girl from the bar we were in a couple of nights ago?’
Maybe. Now I wasn’t so sure. It looked like her but the brothel was about fifty metres down the road from the train station. I was looking through the train window on a rainy day. It could have been anyone but still, something inside of me knew it was her and that I needed to do something about this. Fill my role in her story.
‘Right, so apparently Catherine works at a brothel…’
I interrupted him.
‘She just walked into the place. I don’t know if she works there.
‘…quite a few hours away from the town where we met her.’
I understood the nonsensicality of it all. I also had no idea why I was feeling like I needed to do something about this. She was a stranger that we met on a big night out. What business was it of mine to find out more about her? Why was it that I was surprised about the apparent lies she said about what she did for a living particularly when I was the one not paying much attention to her that night. It made no sense and this irritated me to no end. I ended up agreeing that it wasn’t her to my friend to make sure that he didn’t think I was a complete loony. We also both made an agreement to never sleep in a car ever again.

By that stage I needed to go to work. I worked in telesales, selling portable fire extinguishes over the phone. The job was as good as it’s description. My boss Michael felt that he was doing himself a public service by preying on the elderly who are the only ones home during the day and pretending to be some bogus fire authority checking up on the fire safety of their respective dwellings. The pitch went something like this:
‘Hello?’
‘Hi this is Ioju calling from (towns name you were hitting on that day) Fire Safety Authority. How are you today?’
‘Oh… yes, quite fine thanks. How are…’
‘That’s great. We were just checking (towns name you were hitting on that day) residential fire safety today and we were just wondering how many smoke alarms you have in your home?’
‘Oh deary me… two actually. One in the hallway and one near the kitchen.'
‘That’s fantastic! And do you know when you changed the batteries last?’
‘Darl, we always check them when daylights savings changes over. That’s what they say we have to do. In fact little Bobby came over the other day to help us change them. You know it’s quite hard climbing up the ladder if you are an old lady like myself.’
You always knew they were going to mention that they were old in someway or the other during the phone conversation. That’s what old people like to do. I’m looking forward to doing it myself in a few more years’ time.
‘That’s great to hear that your following the recommended safety procedures in regards to your smoke alarms. Now, could you let me know how many fire extinguishes you have in your home as well?’
‘Oh… Well we don’t have any. We would just use water if a fire broke out.’
We would then break out the fear tactics.
‘But what if it was an electrical fire? Throwing water on an electrical fire would possibly kill you in the process! What would you do then?’
‘Well, I don’t know. I never thought about that have I! Oh dear. How much did you say your fire extinguishes were?'
‘Thirty dollars or two for fifty. Now I can get them sent straight out to you if I could just get your credit card number.’
‘Oh wait, I’ll have to ask little Bobby first to see if it’s the right thing to do.’
‘Mrs. Miller, I’m sure Bobby wouldn’t hesitate in the slightest to make sure that your safety is well taken care of. In fact, you could surprise him by buying two for that special price and giving him one as a present. I’m sure he would be most thankful.’

And there you have a sale. Highly unethical. Probablly illegal to claim you are representing a fake organization as well but it was my job and unfortunately, I was good at it. I was consistently on top of the sales ladder board and I never really had to try too hard. When you spend a few years working at a place, everything you do becomes a repetition of the previous day, the previous month, the previous year. My pitch was nothing more then an actor saying his lines in a stage show on a ten year run. Sure, audiences still love the actors portrayal of said character but the actor has no real thought process going on inside; the spunk that once carried him through the show, long gone. My greatest pride in my working day was to see how many squares and circles I could draw between the gaps of each phone number from the ripped out phone directory page we were working off. Sometimes it would be a work of sheer beauty.

I left work early because I had made enough sales that day and went to The Monkey House for a drink. The Monkey House was probably named after the novel of the same name by Kurt Vonnegut, but besides the name it was just your run of the mill drinking hole with football being played 24/7 on the television in the corner. It was normally frequented by tradespeople who were having a few drinks after work. You didn’t have to make an effort to be in here and I enjoyed that fact immensely. When I was younger I would go to fancy bars with overpriced drinks to be part of the cool crowd. To be in the scene. Amateur photographers from the local street press would ask for your photo if you were deemed hip enough and when the street press would come out, you would be hailed as royalty in your respective scene… for a week at least. I feel ridiculously sorry for the people that haven’t grown out of that stage in their lives and if you, the reader, are still in this depravity of social order, well there’s still hope you could get out as well.