November 1, 2007

"Dull Town Bugle, good afternoon. How may I not help you?"

"I've rung up to complain."

"Then you'll need to speak to me."

"You? Who are you?"

"I'm the complaints department."

"And you answer the phone?"

"Well, yes, because that's normally where the complaints come from, funnily enough."

"Oh."

"Indeed."

[Pause]

Me: "Well, yes?"

"Well I want to complain."

"That much is established. May I ask what about?"

"About the courts."

"The courts?"

"Yes, the courts."

"Madam, we are not the courts, we are a newspaper. We write stories, print photographs, publish advertisements and the occasional competition to win useless garden implements-"

"I know-"

"I haven't finished. We also have infrequent news in brief sections - NIBs, in the trade - that have banal headlines like 'New Slippers For Old Ones', 'Skint Opera Group Needs Your Tenner', and 'Comedy Death - Pensioner Drowns In Watering Can'."

"Right-"

"We listen to a constant, steady, but remarkably reliable stream of whining, brain-meandering fools whose sole purpose in life is to apparently stretch the already frayed edges of my crumbling sanity to a point where spiders' webs can only look on in admiration, all six eyes a-blinking in astonishment, wishing they too had that volatilely robust level of taut elasticity."

"Well-"

"And to be honest, you get to a point, you know, after twenty years of this endless pointless fucking shit, where you think, you know what? You know what? The next person who rings that fucking phone and asks a stupid fucking question or wants some stupid fucking advice about the validity of the fucking guarantee on their 14-year-fucking-old fucking toaster, is going to know about it, you know? You know?"

"I suppose so-"

"So, anyway, here I am, the complaints department. What, pray, can I do for you? Toaster troubles? That hoe gone on the blink again? Your neighbour's cat pissing in your flower bed? Curtains won't close properly? What ever happened to Green Shield stamps? What fuse do you need for the plug for the dancing plant from the pound shop? Should you ask your son about the magazines beneath his bed? Tea - milk first? Chicken? Egg? Is there is a God? Go on. Fire away. I'm all ears."

"Erm, well, I think it's really really wrong that just because I'm agoraphobic I have to go to court."

[Advertising person walks into room, stage left]

"Zeds? Why is your hand buried up its shoulder in the concrete floor with a phone wire wrapped around it?"