Friday, January 18, 2008

My day as a secret agent


Note: this is NOT fiction, what you are about to read actually happened.....

It all started on a monday....I never could quite get the hang of mondays. I was at work, of course I was at work, a single girl has got to eat and for that, she needs a job. I received a phone call, but as I answer phones as part of my job description, this was hardly surprising. It was a man, mid-twenties to thirties by the sound of his voice, a pleasant voice with an American accent--not a New Yorker or a Southern boy, just....American. A contest, he said. Your company name was drawn, and (you lucky girl) you get one of four fabulous prizes. In retrospect I only recall the HD widescreen tv and the 2008 pickup but the other two were fab as well...all he needed to know was when he could send the boys by to wrap things up. The guy threw out a day and time--thursday, 2 pm--and I hesitated. I wasn't interested...a smart cookie like me knows you don't get something for nothing and the the man quickly jumped to the subject of how great this deal really was. I tried to back out but he started asking my demographic information, for a survey, he said. He asked my age group--I lied and said 40. He asked if I made 40K or more--I lied again and said 28. He said great, I could affort the state tax if I won the truck, thanked me for my time and said the boys would be by with my scratch and win ticket and was off before I could say another word.
I sat there stunned...what had I let that smooth talker get me into? I never could say no to a smooth talker...something in me got all tongue-tied and made me feel guilty if I even so much as thought the words "get lost Buster". I sighed, signed onto Google and ran his so-called new company to the area. No hits. I let out an unladylike term and realized I had no way to call this shmuck back and tell him not to bother. Just then another call came in, a legitimate one this time and I forgot about my appointment with destiny...
Thursday. The alarm didn't go off. I woke to my roomate warming up her jalopy just outside my bedroom window, the window I keep cracked open for so-called inner-city fresh air. I grabbed a fresh towel--pale blue--and a darker blue washcloth and raced for the shower. I won, but as no one else was competing for it at the moment, this came as no surprise. Rinsing my hair of its lavender-scented suds it hit me that today that destiny was tossing the boys my way...and me with my best t-shirt in the laundry. My thoughts kept mulling the matter over as I applied my daily coat of paint and styled my from-the-bottle auburn locks. By the time I waltzed through the office door--loaded down by forty pounds of screws I'd picked up along the way--I'd made up my mind that it was time to call the Feds.
Cue one long, tall drink of water (hey I was thirsty) and I had an agent on the line. He listened to my take of suspicion and intrigue, agreed there was something fishy in the air and directed me to my local fuzz. Quietly pushing aside the tuna casserole I was snarfing down as an impromptu breakfast I admitted this agent man was good and called the coppers.
The dispatcher was a brunette. I can't say for certain, but she seemed too level-headed to be a blonde. She agreed with my special agent friend and said she'd have one of the boys in blue over around 1:45 to watch for my Matchstick Men. True to her word Office N strode in at 10 to the hour...tall guy, black pants, bright yellow and black jacket, a .38 special on his hip and cheek-to-cheek ironwords framing all those pearly whites. Wondering where the heck all the blue went I exchanged pleasantries, then got to business. He took notes, then asked for my number, though I hardly expect him to call me later, he didn't strike me as that type of guy. He wore a band on that all-important digit...if you're single you know the one I am talking about. We kept it short and he promised to watch out for suspicious characters in the neighborhood while he causally drove by a few times. If the culprits came if I was to excuse myself, call the dispatch dame and let them know I had two fish on the hook. With that the officer left, handcuffs at the ready for those slime who felt it was fine to gyp poor secretarial-types, like myself, from their hard-earned wages.
Sure enough Officer N drove by several times as I went about my afternoon business but the goons never showed. Dan the man says it was probably because my friendly fuzz was parked in front of our office until nearly 10 past the meeting hour. My special agent earlier said they'd only target women who were alone in the office, and Dan had chosen to hang around and get some work done. Personally, I think it was the 28Gs...to small of potatoes for the likes of them to bother with.
Plenty of other stuff happened today--evaluations, raises, freight to unload, orders to fill, paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork, orientation at school and class schedules to work out...between all that and my adventure in busting big-time scam artists, I can honestly say there was a legitimate reason my exhausted body surrendered to sleep by 9:30. I wonder what tomorrow's adventures will bring....

4 comments:

Teachinfourth said...

Sounds like quite the adventure to me! I was waiting for fabulous prizes, burly goons, and possibly...death?

Glad to hear you were wise on the up and up; also that you were okay in the end...

annette said...

Freaky! You were smart to call the coppers, cause you never know!

BTW, well written piece of work- enjoyed reading every bite!

Yancy said...

that's kind of crazy.

shoezimm said...

I had a lot of fun writing like I was in a Mikey Spillane novel...too bad I can't write my own crap this well...my imagination is wonderful, but its pretty weak on realistic dialogue. I'd always write in first person monologue but the style drives me nuts....