Pay Your Contract Before Contractions

A woman calls our phone company, sounding kinda stressed. As we’re going through the security questions, she starts breathing in an odd manner and making moaning noises.

Me: “Uh, are you okay, ma’am?”

Caller: “Oh, yeah, I’m just havin’ a baby.”

Me: “Uh… ma’am, are you in labor right now?”

Caller: “Yeah, but the contraction just passed. Anyway, about my prepaid cellphone payment. Why didn’t it go through?!”

Her account is a month overdue.

Me: “I don’t see any payments made from you, ma’am.”

Caller: “Well, no, not from me! I don’t have the money to pay that! One of you guys told me earlier today, when the contractions started, that they’d pay for it so that I could text people during labor.”

Me: “Uh, I don’t think that’s something that… happened? I don’t see any noted on the syst—”

Caller: “Well then, you need to do it! I’m havin’ a baby!”

Me: “Are you in the hospital, ma’a—”

I can hear some hospital-like background noises, and what sounds like a (I hope!) nurse chastising her for using the nurse’s desk phone.

Caller: “—Yeah, yeah. Make my payment for me.”

Me: “I can’t do that, ma’am. If you have a means to pay your bill, I can help you—”

Caller: “You’re clearly not a Christian, because a Christian would have paid my bill! I’m having a baby! That’s doing God’s Work!”

The call ended there with the sounds of someone else struggling to take the phone from her.

I left the craziest notes of my career on her account and tried to move on with my day.