brief encounter

I was sitting at my desk at work when my phone rang. Not my desk phone. My cellphone. If my cellphone rings, and it's not a number I recognize, I do not answer it. I hate to talk on the phone and I certainly don't like to waste my time talking to someone I don't know well enough to have their phone number programmed into my contacts list. I stopped what I was doing and picked up my cellphone that was charging on a pad on my desk. As it continued to ring, the screen displayed the name and phone number of my insurance agent. My insurance agent retired a while ago I want to say months, but, lately I have come to realize that I have no skills for gauging the passage of time, so, it was probably more like a few years ago that he retired. As part of his retirement, he passed his customer list over to a new agent. The new agent kept the same phone number. I just never bothered to change the name to the new agent's name in my contacts.

Not my agent.

Regardless of who my insurance agent is, I still pay premiums on my car insurance, homeowner's insurance and life insurance when the bills come due. I pay them online, through the State Farm website, with just a few clicks of my mouse. And that's it. I really don't give much thought to my various insurance policies. I know the insurance on my car went up a few years ago when I replaced my twenty-year-old car with a new one. Spoke with an administrator in the office of my new insurance agent about the new rate and to update my policy with the pertinent information for my new vehicle. Aside from that, insurance is rarely, if ever, a topic of conversation.

Ummm... no thanks.

So, there's a call coming in from my new insurance agent. I stared at the display briefly before declining the call and getting back to work. I was surprised when I didn't hear the little tone that lets me know that someone had left me a voicemail message. I didn't dwell on that thought for too long, as I had work to do. As a matter of fact, I totally forgot about the whole thing.

Just this week, there I was at work again and my cell phone rang. Again. In a wave of deja-vu, I looked at my cell phone screen to see the name of my former insurance agent shining brightly above the options offered to either accept or reject the call. And, once again, I swiped the "red" option to reject the call and returned my attention to my work. This time, however, I heard that little "beep," alerting me that the rejected caller had left me a message. Since I knew who it was from and I knew I had no pressing business with them, I decided to wait until later in the day to listen to the message.

You've got mail

When I got home from work, my wife and I talked while we prepared dinner. The call from the insurance agent didn't even breach the conversation. After dinner, Mrs. P and I settled in front of the TV for an evening of sixty-year old Westerns or perhaps a Phillies game. With only half of my attention on the television, I noticed the little "voicemail" symbol on my phone. I punched in my security code and listened. A female voice identified herself as a representative from my new insurance agent's office. She went on to say that she'd like to discuss my insurance needs. She explained that she'd like to schedule a conference call with my new insurance agent that would take about thirty to forty-five minutes. She then instructed me to call back to set up such a call, reminding me of the call's importance.

When my wife and I bought our house in 1986, I called the closest insurance agent to our new home to get the homeowner's insurance required by the terms of our mortgage. I went to the guy's office and discussed the particulars. As long as I was there, I inquired about car insurance rates and was quickly presented with a list that was considerably cheaper that what we were currently paying. At the end of a meeting that took under ninety minutes, I walked out of the insurance agent's office with policies for homeowner's insurance and two new, less expensive, ones for our cars. The following year, when our son was born, I arranged for a life insurance policy for myself. That was done entirely over the phone by my agent's assistant. Over the years, we have had several claims on our insurance policies, most of which were handled on the phone. If any required a visit to the insurance office, either I or my wife, dealt with our agent's assistant. So, over the course of nearly forty years, I met my insurance agent a total of one time. Now, he is retired. If he decides — in his retirement — to turn to a life of crime and he is arrested, the police cannot rely on me to pick this guy out of a line-up.

I really, really want to call my new insurance agent and explain to her that I see no need to meet with, conference call with, or otherwise relate the current or future status of any of insurance policies I currently hold. If I feel the need to increase, decrease or otherwise alter my current insurance situation, I will surely let her know. In the meantime, I'm good. I'd also like to tell her that the one and only time I ever met my previous insurance agent was, most likely, before she was born.

I really, really want to. But I won't.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

trash (pick it up)

Remember Randi? She was my wife's friend of many, many years. They were nearly inseparable. As a matter of fact, I met Randi the same night I met Mrs. Pincus. Randi was the Maid of Honor at our wedding. She was my son's godmother. Now that he's 37, I suppose he has no use for a godmother anymore, but ...no matter... Randi is no longer in our lives.

Randi was single for most of the time I knew her. But she was desperate — desperate, I tell you — to find a husband. She finally found a guy and married him, but the situation was closer to the "Adios Johnny Bravo!" episode of The Brady Bunch in that this guy "fit the suit." He was a dumb guy and Randi sort of coerced him into marriage.

When I say he was "dumb," I really mean he may have been the dumbest human being I ever met in my entire life. I mean "dumb as dirt" dumb. "Dumb as a bag of doorknobs" dumb. "Dumb as a box of rocks" dumb. I mean D-U-M-B dumb. Years ago, we all decided to take a trip to Yankee Stadium in New York. It was Mrs. P, our son, Randi, Fred (Randi's eventual husband), his seven-year old daughter and me. We all piled into my wife's minivan and headed north from Philadelphia. This was a time before GPS and cellphones were still a novelty. Fred decided to take charge. He declared that, being from North Jersey and allegedly familiar with the area, he would navigate our journey and get us directly to Yankee Stadium's doorstep. We pulled out or our driveway as Fred pulled his cellphone from his pocket and dialed.

"Yeah," he began his conversation to the unheard party on the other end, "we're on our way to...uh... you know." He paused while the person on the other end said something. Fred gazed lazily out the window and listened. "Yeah," he repeated, "to... you know. Up to the....uh.... you know." This "back-and-forth went on for several minutes and never — never — were the words "Yankee Stadium" spoken. Finally, Fred hit the "Call End" button and announced, "Yeah, so my friend says 'Get on the New Jersey Turnpike and ask at the toll booth.'" That was his "exclusive insider" plan to get us to New York. My wife glanced back at me in the rearview mirror and I shrugged my shoulders. I reiterate. Fred was dumb.

After Mrs. P and Randi's friendship dissolved, we completely lost touch with Randi and her life. Through mutual acquaintances, we heard that she and Fred had divorced. Randi moved around, remarried and totally changed personalities. (You can read all about it HERE.) We never did hear anything further about Fred.

Until one day many years later....

Our home phone rang and Mrs. P answered. It was a fellow who identified himself as the owner of a local business called Billows Electric Supply, an industrial supply operation with several locations throughout southern New Jersey. The man asked for "Susan Pincus" by name, as though he was reading from something. My wife, still a bit suspicious, confirmed her own identity to the man and asked what this call was in reference to. After all, we had no business whatsoever with an industrial electric supply company. Next, he asked if she knew someone named "Fred Slottman." That was the last name Mrs. P ever expected to hear again — especially from a strange voice on the other end of a mysterious early morning telephone call.

"Yes," she replied," I know Fred Slottman."

"Well," the man said, the tone of his voice dropping slightly, "I believe that Mr. Slottman is dead." That was a weird thing to hear from the owner of an electrical supply company.

He went on to explain that, on this particular morning, when he arrived at his place of business, his dumpster was overflowing with items that had no business being in his dumpster. It appeared that, during the night, someone had unlawfully deposited an abundance (he may have even used the word "shitload") of personal items into his dumpster. There was the remnants of a bed frame, a smattering of clothing, boxes of assorted household items and a ton of miscellaneous paperwork — receipts, warranties, canceled checks and a personal telephone book. He said that it was from this book that he got our phone number.

My wife listened — dumbfounded by what she was hearing. The story began to piece itself together. Fred had died and someone who was in possession of his personal items was looking for a place to dump them without having to pay to have them hauled away. Mr. Billows Electric Supply shows up for work, sees a bunch of crap in his dumpster, starts fishing around for clues and finds a phone book. He starts calling the numbers listed within.

Suddenly, something struck my wife's "inner detective." She interrupted Mr. Billows Electric. "Hang on a second," she said, "You made it all the way to the Ps in the phone book?"

"Yes," he confessed, "We tried all the other numbers starting with A. You're the first person that answered."

There are fifteen letters that precede P in the alphabet. Either Fred didn't know a whole lot of people or everyone in Fred's phone book whose name begins with A through O were avoiding the phone or.... well, I could come up with a dozen more "if" scenarios that still wouldn't make any of this make sense.

Mrs. P told Mr. Billows Electric that she hadn't been in touch with anyone remotely connected to Fred Slottman for many years. She expressed her inability to offer any further assistance and ended the conversation.

She sat with the phone in her hand for a short time and silent shook her head to herself.

And laughed.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

call me, call me any anytime

I hate talking on the phone. Hate it! That's why Caller ID is one of the greatest advancements in telephone technology since Alexander Graham Bell told Watson to "Come here! I need you!" Aside from my wife, my son and occasionally, my brother, I will rarely answer my cellphone. I especially will not answer when a strange number pops up on the screen. I will happily and defiantly "reject" that call and possibly be amused if the caller has left me a voicemail. This just happened a few days ago while I was at work. My phone rang. I didn't recognize the number, so I sent to call straight to voice mail. When I listened later, I heard what appeared to be a "live" voice (as opposed to an overly-rehearsed computer-synthesized voice) telling me that I still had options to pay and possibly reduce my student loan. Let me tell you.... I am 61 years old. I made my final student loan payment almost 30 years ago. When I was making student loan payments, my monthly payment was a few cents under 81 dollars. (My entire tuition for four years of art school was around 76 hundred dollars. Yep. That's all.) Believe me, when the first few payments came due, I struggled. I diligently looked for a job in my field while I worked in my father-in-law's hardware store and took freelance design jobs here and there. I finally landed my first real "art" job in 1985 and I just added another 81 bucks to my monthly financial obligations. Needless to say, I haven't written a check to the student loan payment center since the Clinton administration. Hell, my son's student loan payback period has already passed! So where do these people get their information? As scammers, they are doing a pretty lousy job. But, luckily, Caller ID saved me from listening to a bogus pitch from some dude posing as a financial expert.

When I got home from work, my house phone rang. Yeah, we still have a landline. It works in conjunction with our home security system. I rarely, if ever, answer our landline phone. The Caller ID appears on our television screen, as a perk from the good folks at Comcast, from whom we get our phone service. This time, the name "DYNA... something" showed up and, obviously not being in my right mind, I answered it. It was a pleasant-voiced woman assuring me that she would not be trying to sell me anything. Instead, she — on behalf of her employer — was gathering information regarding the upcoming elections in Philadelphia. I interrupted her as she was about to continue on with her next scripted statement. 

"We are not in Philadelphia.," I said

"Oh," she replied, sounding disappointed. "Is anyone there registered to vote in Philadelphia?" she continued with more of a hopeful tone in her voice.

"This house is not in Philadelphia." I said sternly.

"Oh," she lamented. "I will make a note of it. Thank you for your time."

Later the same evening, the words "DYNA... something" appeared on our TV screen during our regular viewing of Jeopardy! Thinking it was the same person calling me back after just a few hours, I foolishly answered the phone. It was a different person from the same organization. This time, they asked to speak to a female in the house who was registered to vote. At this point, I could hear Mrs. Pincus in the next room talking to someone on her cellphone.

"She is not available." I informed this new inquisitor.

"Oh," she replied, "Is there a better time to reach the female registered voter in your home?"

I sighed. Obviously, she was persistent and ending this was not going to be easy. "Tomorrow, I guess."

"What time tomorrow would be best?" She was not letting up.

I gave her the vaguest "I don't know" and she just said she'd make a note and try again tomorrow.

I swear... I am never answering the phone again. I don't even know why I started.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com