Creeping Into Your Bad Books And Facebooks

(I pick up a call from what is supposedly a city-run call centre. The employee is looking for my mother, who is the head of household. It’s about 2 pm and she is at work, which I tell him, but he wants to give me his spiel anyway. It’s to do with carbon monoxide emissions from furnaces, and I am awkwardly ‘uh-huh’-ing through the whole thing. Finally:)

Employee: “Do you think you can relay that information to your mother? I also need a date to call back and reach her.”

Me: “Yes, I’ll tell her you called. Saturday around noon would probably be best.”

Employee: “Okay. Do you mind if I ask your name? We’ve been talking for like seven minutes and I don’t even know your name.”

(This strikes me as odd. I begin to get a bit uncomfortable because I’m not exactly having a casual conversation with my best friend, but see no harm in giving out my first name.)

Me: “It’s [first name].”

Employee: “That’s a nice name. My [relative] has the same name. Um… Looking at the time you picked up this call… How old are you?”

Me: *getting defensive* “I’m 18. How is this relevant to the call?”

Employee: “Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. But, do you go to college? It’s 2 pm.”

Me: *lying out of suspicion* “No. I work part time.”

Employee: “Oh… I’m working here, too, for the city. Yeah, I’m not much older than you. I’m 22. I have one last question for you. Do you want to be my friend?”

Me: *speechless*

Employee: “I mean, do you have Facebook? I want to be friends.”

(Realizing how creepy this is getting, I want to just get off the phone without slamming it down.)

Me: “No.”

Employee: “What about Twitter? Any other social media sites or anything?”

Me: “No. I deleted them all.”

(By this point, he sounded almost as uncomfortable as I was, and as soon as I established that I was hanging up he went right back to a very scripted ‘have a nice day’ speech. We’re still awaiting the ‘call back’ on Saturday, and I hope it doesn’t happen.)