Two days went by. Lena’s life was now officially measured in cardboard tonnage.
Hope flickered briefly on Monday afternoon when a cheerful Girl Scout troop knocked on her door, offering to haul away calendars for a neighborhood paper-mâché project. Lena’s heart leaped – she envisioned wheelbarrows full of soggy calendars rolling off into the sunset.
Instead, thirty minutes of polite deliberations earned her one taken calendar – and five purchased boxes of Thin Mints.
Then came the freight truck.
With an agonizing symphony of reverse beeps, the driver dumped an entire fresh wooden pallet of boxes right at the edge of the street.
Bone-weary, outmatched, but stubbornly refusing to die under glossy cat calendars, Lena took a scalding gulp of uber-strong black coffee, gripped the receiver, and got right back on the horn.
OPERATOR: Welcome to Cats Galore Enterprises! How may I assist you and your loving cat today?
LENA: I would like to cancel my Cats Galore calendar subscription.
OPERATOR: Oh dear, you have the wrong line! Are you calling the Western or Eastern division?
LENA: How the heck am I supposed to know?!
OPERATOR: Oh my. You sound, like, wildly over-caffeinated. Let me transfer you straight to the help desk!
(CLICK – the line abruptly goes dead)
(Lena stares at the silent receiver, groaning in pure disbelief, before punching the redial button with renewed fury. The line rings twice before someone picks up with excessive energy.)
WOMAN’S VOICE: (Over loud background music) ¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás?
LENA: (Blinking in shock, muttering to herself) …Wrong number?!
(CLICK – Lena hangs up immediately, rubs her temples, takes another huge gulp of coffee, and redials the Cats Galore hotline.)
NEW OPERATOR: (Answering with breathless, sing-song enthusiasm) Cats Galore Enterprises! Can I put you on hold?
LENA: (Shouting into the phone) NO!
NEW OPERATOR: Sorry, gotta anyway! … I got an old man crying on line 2 because his calendar did not show up on time and I have a pro wrestler on line 5 breaking down in tears over the photo shoot of Princess Fluffiness for the month of October.
(A sharp CLICK, followed instantly by screeching, garbled, low-bitrate hold music that suddenly cuts into a bombastic, echoing radio commercial: “Is your fluffy companion clearing out the living room every time they yawn? Ask your vet about Heebie Jeebies Breath Mints! When your little stinker meows with bad breath, give ’em the minty crunch they deserve! Side effects may include sudden sprinting at 3:00 AM and excessive paw-licking…”)
(The commercial abruptly snaps off, replaced by five seconds of static and hollow industrial clatter)
MAN’S VOICE: (Gruff, echoing through a vast room over the loud rumble of forklifts and backup alarms) WAREHOUSE!
LENA: (Caught completely off-guard) …Ummm…
MAN’S VOICE: Hello? Cats Galore Distributing Warehouse! Speak up, pal, I got four forklifts backing into Bay 9!
LENA: (Gasps with sudden, wild excitement, gripping the phone with both hands) Oh! Hey! You – you load the trucks, right?! Stop loading the trucks!
MAN’S VOICE: Lady, I got eighty tons of high-gloss paper stock on the floor. Which route?
LENA: Hippysnip! Stop the shipments to Hippysnip! Lena Bumgartner!
MAN’S VOICE: Bumgartner? Hold on. (Sound of shuffling clipboard papers and loud hydraulic hiss) Manifest 409? Lady, that pallet is already logged and rolling. You need an authorized Form 88-Meow from Chad Pawlters to freeze Bay 9, and I’m on my mandatory union break in two minutes!
LENA: I don’t have an 88-Meow form! I have four hundred rotting calendars on my front lawn! Just radio your driver and turn the truck around!
MAN’S VOICE: Turn around? Without a dispatcher stamp? That’s a direct contract violation, pal! Hey, you sound real grumpy. I got zero time for dispatch trolling, Bay 9 is backed up out to the highway!
(CLICK – the warehouse line cuts off with a loud mechanical clatter)
LENA: (Screaming into the dead phone, throwing her hands in the air) Aaargh!
(Puffing her cheeks, Lena slams her coffee mug onto the counter, takes a deep breath through her teeth, and redials the hotline, yet again.)
TRAINEE #327: (Bright, chirp-filled voice crackling over the line) Thank you for calling Cats Galore Enterprises! My name is Trainee #327! Please bear with me today, as I am actively in training and learning our purr-fect computer terminal! I did knock over my colleague’s coffee onto the keyboard, so, rough start, but… hmmm… how may I bring sunshine to you and your feline today?
LENA: (Pinching the bridge of her nose, forcing every ounce of polite restraint into her voice) Hello, Trainee #327. I am speaking very calmly. I would like to kindly, politely, and permanently request the cancellation of my calendar subscription, please.
TRAINEE #327: Your name please?
LENA: Lena Bumgartner.
TRAINEE #327: (Rapid typing sound effects) Let me just pull up your account records here… typing in Bumgartner… Oh! Oh, wow! Oh, holy whiskers!
LENA: …What? What is it?
TRAINEE #327: (Gasping in pure reverent awe) I see it right here on my monitor! Ma’am, you are our Number One best customer in the entire company! Congratulations! You have unlocked the new Diamond Whiskers status! You must have an unbelievable amount of calendars!
LENA: (Voice trembling with exhausted intensity) Calendars aren’t just in my house – calendars ARE my house! I’m eating breakfast off a July 2021 Calico because my table is buried! They are taped across my ceilings, they line the floorboards, and my screened-in back patio has been walled into a catio by three tons of cardboard!
TRAINEE #327: (Sounding deeply touched, on the verge of happy tears) That is just… breathtaking. Your story brings a heartfelt tear to my eye. You have a shrine! A dedicated catio sanctuary of true devotion! Tell me, how many precious fur babies do you have enjoying that magical calendar paradise?
LENA: None.
TRAINEE #327: (A long beat of absolute, deafening silence) …I’m sorry? What?
LENA: I have no cats here. Not a single one.
TRAINEE #327: (Gasps in sheer, suffocating horror, his voice cracking with disgust) You… you have NO cats?! … Zero felines?! … Wait. You built an entire calendar catio without a resident feline soul?! …Umm… You’re hoarding sacred feline portraiture for yourself?! That is… that is absolutely sickening! How dare you!
(SLAM! CLICK – line goes dead)
View Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Thank you for reading and leaving your comments