marcella lowery

sometimes when i am at work and i am talking to people on the phone i try to imagine who the person on the other line really is. like yesterday for example, a woman called me, she was pretty loud (i had to turn the volume down on my phone at least 3 levels) and i could tell she was assertive by the way she was talking to me and asking me questions. i imagined that she was calling me during her 15 minute 'smoke break' and that she probably worked in some sort of customer service job (maybe for comcast - she's the lady that 'notes' things in the system and won't let you speak to her manager). maybe she even wore a headset so that she could answer as many calls as possible, after all, the phone is probably ringing off the hook at comcast with customer complaints. i thought she probably wears blazers to work even though she doesn't ever come in contact directly with a customer - and that day, i think she was wearing a lavender one. i think she probably left the shoulder pads in her blazer too. and, she was probably wearing a lot of blush and fuchsia lipstick. actually, now that i think of it, i think she was that operator from What about Bob, her name was Betty I think. She was the operator that Bob called when Dr. Leo Marvin went on vacation. anyway, i know that other people out there do the same exact thing. you can't help it but think about what that person on the other end of the line is like. and for me, that woman is Betty.