Introduction

The Telemarketer from Hell

Wait, There's More!

Once upon a weekend dreary, while I brooded, eyeballs bleary,
Watching cheesy videos I'd seen a hundred times before,
Tightly to my beer can clinging, suddenly I heard a ringing,
Some insistent ting-a-linging just outside my chamber door.
"It's the telephone," I muttered, "just outside my chamber door.
Only this, and nothing more."

Setting down my Classic Chee-tos by my jalapeño Fritos,
Dodging heaps of stale Doritos scattered on my unswept floor,
Toward the irksome sound I stumbled; with that ringing phone I fumbled,
For my brains were slightly jumbled, as I'd hoisted three or four.
"Yeah?" I said, a little miffed, for getting up had been a chore.
Silence there, and nothing more.

Oh! what grave and grim vexation followed from that hesitation!
For I knew its meaning from a million calls I'd had before.
Surely this was someone selling vinyl siding for my dwelling,
Cell phone service, fortune-telling, or vacations by the shore.
Some rude telemarketer, whose kind all decent folk abhor!
"Eat my shorts!" I duly swore.

Back into my chamber turning, temples throbbing, stomach churning,
Once again I heard a ringing too annoying to ignore.
Angered to the point of fever, then I lifted that receiver,
When a voice like Beaver Cleaver chilled me to my very core.
"Hi!" it said. "My name is Hank. I represent The Credit Store.
Listen up, I'll tell you more!"

There I stood, morose and glaring, all my sickened soul despairing,
Mind ablaze with fantasies of murder, mayhem, blood and gore.
Yet, my rising wrath restraining, some composure still maintaining,
Civilly I tried explaining that no sales would be in store.
"I'm not interested," I said. "Your scripted pitch I'll just ignore."
Please don't call me anymore."

"Sir," he said, not hesitating, "your outstanding credit rating
Ought to be rewarded with a deal you've never seen before!
From the data we've collected, we can tell you're well respected.
Out of millions, you're selected for a card that's called Explore!
Act today, and you can get an APR of six-point-four.
All of this and much, much more!

Presently my wrath grew stronger. Pulling punches then no longer,
"Pal," I said, "Perhaps I didn't make my meaning clear before.
What you're selling I'm not buying. If you find that mystifying,
Here's what I've been long implying -- do not plague me anymore!
Strike my number off your list! Your deal's a sham, and you're a bore!"
Quoth the caller, "Wait, there's more!"

Now this bold and brazen answer burrowed like a raging cancer
Eating at my very soul, if you'll excuse the metaphor.
"Jerk!" I cried. "You shameless dastard! Are you deaf or are you plastered?
No, you're just a vicious bastard, as I might have guessed before!
Stinking, low-life horse's bottom! And your mother is a whore!
Quoth the caller, "Wait, there's more!"

"Fiend!" I shouted. "Thing of evil! Telemarketer or devil!
Enemy of all that's sacred, all that man and God adore!
From this torture most appalling, into madness I am falling.
Cease from this infernal calling, and my sanity restore!
Find an ounce of mercy in you, and my sanity restore!
Quoth the caller, "Wait, there's more!"

Once again that phrase was spoken, and my fragile soul was broken.
Shrieking, trembling, sobbing, I collapsed upon my chamber floor.
And that caller, ever hawking, still is talking, still is talking,
Like some hellish raven squawking on the night's Plutonian shore.
And inside my fevered brain I hear that voice I so deplore,
As it echoes, "Wait, there's more!"

Copyright; Scott Emmons
Email: scott@wordchowder.com
Web Site: http://www.wordchowder.com