Page 3 of Off Script
“Oh my god, I’m yelling about sex in the middle of a crowded bus,” I mumble, mortified. I feel the heat from a violent blush sweep across my face.
My Bible-toting seatmate glances at me furtively, alarmed as if she might catch an STD simply from sitting near me. She pantomimes the sign of the cross and then begins furiously rubbing the rosary hanging around her neck. As I apologetically smile at her, she refuses to meet my gaze. When the bus comes to a stop, she hops up, scurrying to claim an available seat across the bus.
Feeling defensive, I try to explain the asinine situation to her. “Ma’am, I apologize, but I’m not… I’m not a phone sex worker! He’s the pervert, not me!” I holler, pointing to my phone. “He called the wrong number and accidentally reached me. It was a wrong number, damn it!” My voice quietens as even more people look my way after my outburst. “Great. Now everyone on the bus thinks I’m a sex worker.” I slouch deeper into my seat as laughter continues to reverberate from my phone.
“Carlisle Matthews, are you trying to convince people you aren’t a purveyor of telephonic erotica?” My unidentified caller quips with another snicker.
“A purveyor of telephonic erotica?!” I yelp loudly, offended at his insinuation.
Oops, I did it again.
OMG, I just inadvertently quoted Britney Spears. It's official. I've lost the plot.
I glance up, hoping that my second gaffe went undetected.No such luck. Those sitting around me are still blatantly eavesdropping.
“No, you douche canoe, I’m not," I hiss, lowering my voice to a whisper. "But I don’t have to explain myself to you. You’re the one who called the number. You can’t tell me that you didn’t realize the last four digits of the phone number you dialed—7399—spells sexy? Likely story.”
A pregnant pause follows before he groans. “Ugh, Joanna! I am going to kill her. I promise, I thought I was calling an interior designer to discuss artwork for my living room.”
His practical joke theory sounds plausible, but I’m not convinced.
“You must have a phone number close to the hotline’s number. Is this something you deal with a lot?”
“Yes, my work cell phone number is only one digit off. You wouldn’t believe the number of weird calls and voicemails I receive.”
Raising my gaze, I'm relieved to see that fewer people appear to be listening my conversation, but in doing so, I make eye contact with a teenage boy. He's sporting a mullet, acne, and a lecherous stare aimed in my direction. He has the audacity to wink at me while biting his lower lip.
Are you there, God, it’s me, Carlisle? Please get me off this bus.
“Might I suggest changing your number? Seems like an easy fix.” The soothing voice tugs my attention back to my phone.
“Thank you for the suggestion, Mr. Helpful. I never would've thought of that,” I respond, my voice oozing sarcasm like honey from a beehive. “Unfortunately, my boss already had my business cards printed, and he doesn’t want to pay to reprint them…even though we’re an office supply company and could reprint them ourselves for pennies.”
“What is it that you do exactly? Since you’re obviously not involved in the lucrative dealings of phone porn.”
Is it lucrative?Maybe I should give it a shot.
“I’m an assistant to the CEO of the Staples King office supplies stores.” I sigh deeply. May as well rip the band aid off and tell this perfect stranger about my idiocy. “Turns out that Staples King has nothing to do with the Staples Center, as I naively believed because I’m an absolute dumbass and did zero sober research before accepting the job.”
“Sober research?” His laughter quickly turns to full guffaws. "Please tell me the rest of this story."
“Kindly shut up.”
“Do you like it? Your job? Other than fielding the sex calls, of course.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
He sounds genuinely curious, which tempts me to be honest with him. But how do I explain that through a short series of idiotic mistakes on my part, I’m stuck living in a perpetual loop ofOffice Spacewith a little sexual harassment on the side?
“I doubled-majored in general business and mass communications at Ole Miss. It's frustrating that four years of hard work culminated in a job where my duties consist of cold calling grocery stores to see if they’ll sell our brand of staples and bringing coffee to my libidinous–”
“Libidinous? Impressive word selection.”
“Please,” I scoff. “Just because I’m from the south doesn’t mean that I don’t know my polysyllabic words.”
“If you don’t enjoy your work, why don’t you switch jobs?”
