Organ Grinder:
News for Pervy Little Monkeys

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It makes a lovely light.
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

I don't know if it's the season change, or turning thirty, or some weird astrological fart, but lately it seems like my work life is one long extended remix of The Smiths' Frankly, Mr Shankly. You know, the song that goes: "Frankly, Mr. Shankly, this position I hold /it pays my way but it corrodes my soul. / I want to leave. / You will not miss me. / I want to go down in musical history, Mr Shankly." It's funny, to write "my work life." I am a writer and a performer; this column is my work life. So are rehearsals, readings, and getting wrecked at the Café Deux Soleils, watching the Turkish-anarchist band Something About Reptiles while wearing a polyester slip on my head. Hey, it's a living.

Or rather, it's not yet a living, which compels me to work a day job to support myself. As job-jobs go, I have a great one: creative, flexible, well paying, nice view. Also, as job-jobs go, I have fits of detesting absolutely everything about it. Sometimes the only way I know I'm on the right track is to recall some of the gull-brained minimum wage gigs that I've taken in the name of "gettin' by". In comparison, my present job is cake. This technique is not in any way particular to artists. I have yet to meet anyone who doesn't have an "I had the crappiest job in the world and I quit before I got fired" story. So, without further ado:

I had the crappiest job in the world and I quit before I got fired.

Let's start at the beginning: When I was ready to be born, the Gods asked me who I wanted to be. I looked around and said "Well, Edna St. Vincent Millay is twenty years in the grave, Ann Margaret's still kicking but she can't write for beans; I think you'd better make me a wise-ass Canadian author of racy love-propaganda cabaret. In this way I will carry the torch for Witty, Assertive Redheads, Broadway Dancers, and other Endearing Sluts." This is the job the universe has blessed me with. As it turns out, it is a torch that burns at both ends.

When I took the job at the phone-sex line in 1994, I rationalized it as an adventure, a character gig. What I did not know was that I had accepted a telemarketing job with fake orgasms and no benefits. Walking in to the phone room, I saw thirty amazingly diverse women, hunched over small desk carrels, talking sotto voce into handset telephones; simultaneously reading, knitting, or playing solitaire. I noticed with amazement that the phones actually rang. Out loud. So much for "I'm lying around naked on a bearskin rug." Believable, but only if the rug happens to be smack in the middle of a successful NPR funding drive. I could deal with that absurdity.

We were paid a whopping 25 cents a minute, that's 15 bucks an hour; if you could keep a guy on the line until the ten minute maximum before they got cut off (automatically!); and if there was another call waiting, and if you could do that six times in a row with no down time. In other words, ten bucks an hour, if you were lucky and the management hadn't overbooked the shift. Let's do the math the other way round: 15 bucks an hour divided by four bucks a minute; even in my best-case scenario the company has paid my wage in the first 3.75 minutes; the next 56.25 are pure profit. That's a maximum of $225 an hour to the power of thirty women per shift. That absurdity too, I could deal with, though I honestly can't remember why. Oh yes: Abject Desperation; it's a tidy little motivator.

The absurdity that ended my fledgling career was the innocuously named "soft call." It worked like this: The owners of the company had advertised a number that was not yet fully licensed for phone sex. When that line rang, the dispatcher's voice would come over the phone and advise the operator that a "soft call" was incoming. The operator would then enter a suggestive conversation with the unsuspecting caller, except that she was forbidden to use any explicit nouns. Allow me to demonstrate:
1) "I just love your banana."
2) "I have gigantic, juicy melons."
3) "Spank my little round pumpkin."

Adding to the general hilarity was the fact that penetration metaphors of any sort were strictly verboten. Therefore, one could say:
A) "I want to lick that Creamsicle™ 'til the juice runs down my chin"
But one could not say
B) "I want to suck that Creamsicle™ 'til the juice runs down my chin."

Now, using these criteria, can you guess which of the following statements would garner a reprimand?
1) "Honey, taste my sweet little button."
2) "Voulez-vous ma cherry bon-bon?"
3) "Suck my clit hard, you miserable bastard."

Maybe I was being lazy, maybe I was empathetic to the poor, uninformed mark, but I just couldn't find it in myself to think up one more coy phrase for penis. My supervisor would come by with a disappointed look on her face; explaining to me kindly "That was a soft call. You were talking dirty." I could only look at her the way a cow on the highway does an inconvenienced motorist. It is a look that says: "You can honk all you want; but we both know that when you're done, I'll still be a cow."

So I quit. Before I got fired. From a sex line. For talking dirty. On the upside, I learned some valuable skills that are unlikely to appear on my CV. If I'm ever in intense negotiations and feel the need to make believable masturbation sounds with my armpit…well, I know what I'm capable of. You want to know the funny thing? Sometimes, when I compare my current day job to the phone room, I recall that both companies are located in the same tall, pink office tower. This time, I have a view.