Essa Alroc's Blog, page 14

Things I Don’t Want for Christmas

It is that time of year again, where my friends prove how little they know me by giving me a present that I immediately shove into a drawer or re-gift to someone I don’t like, like my mail man or the pizza guy. In the interest of helping out everyone, here are some things that you can throw away instead of giving them to me.

Pictures of your children.

I hate to be a dick about this (well, not really) but why the fuck would I want pictures of children that aren’t mine? Maybe I might get it if they were a close relations or something, like nieces and nephews, but I don’t have any of those. Most of the time, I’m getting the photos from people I haven’t seen since high school.

Look, people who feel the need to do this, I need to share something with you. I know you think your kids are cute, but you are the only one. Know that little Jimmy’s face is currently acting as a coaster for my beer.

Inspirational plaques, picture frames, etc.

To date, I have only received one inspirational plaque that I like. It came from my mother, and it is inscribed with the wise words;

“Why the hell has no one hit you in the face with a hammer yet!?!”

To me, that’s all the inspiration I need to live by. In this world, there are two kinds of people. There are the people who deserve to get hit in the face with hammers, and those who do the hitting.

People who give out inspirational plaques for Christmas fall into the first group.

Sex toys

There’s always one out there who has to be the edgy chick (or creepy guy) handing out dildos, specialty lube, edible undies, or worse. Look, ladies, this isn’t a shitty bachelorette party. It’s Jesus’ birthday for fucks sake. Save that shit for if I ever get drunk enough to get married.

These people always do this with one goal in mind, to embarrass the recipient. Luckily, I am immune from embarrassment, having both taken group showers, and given birth in front of an entire student nursing staff.

The last time some bitch did this to me, I paid her back by giving her a bong for her birthday. I don’t know what was funnier; the look of horror on her face as she opened the box, or the desperation in her voice as she tried to convince her parents it was a lamp.

Good times.

Office supplies

Yes, I know I work from home, so it seems like it’s a good idea. Here’s the thing, my office environment is entirely virtual. I don’t use paper, I don’t use pens and I don’t need a poster of a cat dangling off a tree branch, telling me to ‘hang in there.’

I have a desk, a computer and a kick ass fancy office chair that swivels (courtesy of mom and brother from last x-mas). This is all I need to get my work done…so please return that gift card to Office Depot. I haven’t even been in one of those since 1998.

Look, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, and the thing is, I’m actually trying not to be. I’m trying to save you money. I don’t need gifts at all. Give me a call, stop by for a drink, or just leave me the hell alone, but don’t feel obligated to give a gift to me because we went to grade school together.

If you absolutely must, must get me a gift this holiday season, here is my wish list;

Essa’s Wish List

Money
Booze
Money to buy booze

Happy holidays people. May you get everything you dreamed of…or nothing at all.

 

 

 

A Review of Some Marijuana I Bought on the Internet

“OMG, you can’t buy weed on the web! It’s fake…you’ll get busted…” says anyone ever who has not discovered the beauty that is the deep web.

Look, before you gear up your lectures, I’m not buying bags of oregano on Craigslist. I’m buying from a clinic in California. As for getting busted, I would be a lot more worried about law enforcement wasting valuable time doing a forensic IP search so they can bust me for buying a dime bag than I worry about the inevitable probation that would follow my bust.

Oh no! Probation…i.e. law enforcement’s equivalent of your parents saying “don’t do it again.”

Luckily, my online purchase arrives without incident, vacuum sealed for freshness, in a discreet brown box. I open the box and to my delight, see that my purchase has been pre-rolled for my convenience.

The marijuana comes with a helpful card from the company, which warns me to reduce my usual intake as medical grade weed is apparently much stronger than the schwag I buy on the streets.

“Whatever,” I say as I sit back and light up. I can handle strong weed. I’ve followed Phish and been to every Hemp Fest since 1995 for Christ sakes.

15 minutes later, the joint is a roach and I realize that I’m petting my dog so hard, she is slightly dented. Even as Sophia glares at me, I just can’t stop petting her. She’s the softest thing in the whole wide world.

I realize I’m hungry. I pick up Sophia and carry her to the kitchen, before putting her down in the sink and going into the pantry for cornflakes.

No time for milk. I shove my hand into the open box and start shoveling cornflakes into my mouth as fast as humanly possible. For the next 15 minutes, I do absolutely nothing but stare at my kitchen faucet as I eat an entire, family-sized box of generic cornflakes. I only finally stop when the box is empty.

I shove the empty box into the freezer and get ready to head to the TV. Then, I step on something.

“Cornflakes?” As far as the eye can see, there are cornflakes. “Who the fuck got cornflakes all over the kitchen?”

I get the broom and start sweeping furiously. As I am sweeping, I realize that the floor could do with a good wash. I put the broom away in the bathtub and fill up a bucket of water.

I’m on my hands and knees, scrubbing the floor with a sponge, when I realize that under the refrigerator is dirty. I move the refrigerator and scrub the floor underneath it. As I’m scrubbing the floor, I notice that the clean floor is making the dirt on the walls more noticeable.

I start scrubbing the walls. An hour later, I’m finally done. I put the dirty sponge away in the breadbox and survey my handy work.

My kitchen has never been so clean! I deserve a reward.

I head back to my stash and light up a joint. 15 minutes later, the joint is a roach…and I’m friggen starving.

I head to the kitchen. “Sophia?” My dog stares at me mournfully from the sink. “How the hell did you get in the sink?” I pick her up out of the sink and put her on a surprisingly clean floor.

I open the pantry, but what I’m looking for isn’t there. “Who the fuck ate all my cornflakes?”

As for my review, I give the marijuana I bought on the internet two enthusiastic thumbs up. Warning; side effects include excessive cleaning and loss of cornflakes.

And Then it Happened

I finally got around to doing something I was promising to do.I have archived some of my favorite hatemail (or just idiotic responses) along with my comments to said responses. It is on my new page;

Responses to Hatemail – Where Idiots Live in Infamy

New hatemail will get added as I respond. Enjoy.

 

No One Cares About Your IQ…and You Are Still an Idiot

Today, when I was supposed to be working, I instead was lurking in a forum. It was a reader’s forum. I like those because they have the very best fights. At one point, a literary author came on and asked questions about ‘dumbing down’ his books.

At which point, everyone got offended and accused the guy of everything from being condescending, to puppy murder. Seriously, I’m pretty sure you would find more civility in a white power chat room than you would on most reader’s forums.

But that’s not what today’s post is about. Instead, it is just giving the background story for one of my pet peeves. The ‘my IQ is…” random statement.

As the fight reached its climax, one poster loudly declared “my IQ is 138 and also I’m in Mensa.”

And I wanted to respond “well, I’ve never been dumb enough to pay someone to tell me how smart I am…and I’m also a member of the Gray’s Papaya ‘Hot Dog of the Month’ club.”

Look people, when you tell me your alleged IQ like I’m supposed to care, I think one of three things.

A really smart person would know that trying to impress people with an IQ score sounds pretentious and desperate
Apparently, anyone with $29.95 can get a piece of paper that tells them they’re in the top 95%
Who gives a fuck?

For the most part, unless you have been in a monitored environment, taking a test that covers a range of different variables, your IQ test is invalid, a scam, or both. For example, I went online and picked the fist IQ test I could find. Here are my results;

Do you know how I got that result that tells me I’m ‘above average’? I closed my eyes and clicked until the test was done.

Also, when you tell me that you’re a member of Mensa, know that I’m laughing my ass off on the inside. Know why? Because you just paid a nonprofit company anywhere from $30 to $100 to tell you that you’re smart, and then another $52 per year so you can say “I’m in Mensa’ to random people you meet on the internet.

Well done, genius.

You know who the real geniuses in Mensa are? Whoever is collecting that $82 per person, times 50,000. That’s more than 4 million bucks a year people… TAX FUCKING FREE.

Look, am I saying that members of Mensa are really idiots? No, actually the tests Mensa administers come about as close as you can to accurately testing base intelligence and learning ability. What I’m saying is that these people are emotional idiots. Going around telling people how smart you are is like me going around telling everyone how great in bed I am.

Sure, it’s true, but I keep that info on a need-to-know basis. Otherwise, I just look like I’m bragging. I’m not joining a club for the 2% out there who are great in bed. I’m not paying $49.99 at the ‘University of Sexual Prowess’ to take a test to prove how great in bed I am. I just know I’m great in bed. That’s enough for me.

Of course, if you’re joining Mensa to get into college and to impress prospective employers, I get it. But if you join Mensa just so you can brag about your IQ and tell strangers how smart you are, know that just about everyone listening to you is rolling their eyes.

And we all think you’re an idiot…regardless of your high IQ.

A Short Update About Comments

Hello people, this isn’t really a post, so much as a short update letting you know of an idea I had.

As you probably know, I shut down comments for a few months this year due to excessive hate mail and an internet stalker. However, what I didn’t consider was the damage this would cause to my regular commenters who post insightful and often hilarious points regarding my article.

In addition, I am starting to develop a fondness for my Twitter account. Honestly, it’s a lot like arguing in my comments section, with hashtags. I’m really enjoying it.

So I have decided to combine my awesome commenters with my twitter account. Every day, I will be picking out a new awesome comment  that has been left on my blog and I will be tweeting it, along with your Twitter handle and/or your blog address. For some reason, I have like 1600+ followers, which indicates to me that the less I speak, the more people like me.

I’m even creating a hashtag for this (damn, I’m good at Tweeting!) #EssaComments. You can follow me on Twitter @Essa_Alroc.

If you have ever submitted a comment on my blog, consider yourself part of the pool. However, if you wish to opt out, because you are a crazy internet recluse, let me know in the comments.

In short, let me know that you don’t want me to post your comment…by commenting. I do enjoy irony.

***If you have a preference over blog or Twitter handle, let me know. I only have 140 characters to work with***

A Supply Side Christmas

Earlier today, I was wondering why all the Christmas shows always seem to talk about the ‘true meaning’ of Christmas. About how it’s about love, and togetherness, and all that other hokey bullshit.

For once, I would like to see a Christmas story that actually talks about the benefits of Christmas commercialism. Of course, I couldn’t find one. So I did what I always do. I wrote one. …in poem form. Enjoy.

A Supply Side Christmas

It was the night before Christmas

and all through the mall

the isles were empty

with no one spending at all

the stores were deserted

and the tills were all bare

due to a self-righteous statement

that deemed commercialism unfair

‘Stop all your spending’

all the liberal hippies screamed

“the holiday season

isn’t about getting what you dreamed

it’s about love and togetherness

about sharing and hope

and those who don’t agree with us

can go piss up a rope’

So people stopped spending

they put their credit cards away

they ignored gift giving

and hoarded their pay

With no one a spending

all through the town

all of the stores

were quick to close down

when the  money stopper flowing

from consumer to store

and all the employees

were soon shown the door

Mass layoffs were seen

in the land of the free

and soon the whole land

was immersed in poverty

People were starving

on streets across the country

and many were quick to realize

the best things aren’t always free

Like food and clothing

and shelter from the cold

Plus all this Christmas kindness

was starting to get old

 

But it was too late to return

to the way things had been

and riots and mass panic

were quick to set in

People fought in the streets

for even crumb they could get

and borrowed money from loan sharks

increasing their debt

The house were all foreclosed

the streets lined with dung

the people resorted to cannibalism

and started eating their young

In all of the chaos

A simple lesson could be found

money and not idealism

makes the world go round

While being a Christmas idealist

might seem like fun

You need to consider

Economics 101

people spend money

and improve the economy

because eventually that money

returns to you and me

So let me remind you

as your idealistic haze lifts

Christmas isn’t about love

it’s about fucking gifts

#AskRKelly – A Lesson in PR Disasters

In case you don’t use Twitter, chances are, you’re missing out on a great PR train wreck in progress.

#AskRKelly was set up as a Q & A for publicity for R Kelly’s new album Black Panties. I honestly don’t know why he did this. Even years after the accusations, all I can think of when I hear ‘R Kelly’ is ‘he peed on someone’.

Apparently, I’m not the only person who thinks this, because the second the whole #AskRKelly thing started, dozens of sarcastic questions started flooding in asking about his love of golden showers and his sexual orientation.

The top pending pictures on #AskRKelly are these two;

R Kelly made a famous mistake. He asked people for their opinions. Don’t do that, especially on the internet…and extra-especially when your name is synonymous with urinating on underage girls.

Asking fans for opinions, with absolutely no restrictions in place is just asking for trouble. For evidence, I bring up the case of the ’07 Chevy Tahoe social media train wreck.

In 2006, some marketing genius probably had far too many drinks and brought up a terrible idea for Chevy. In order to get publicity for their upcoming 07 Chevy Tahoe, they invited fans to make their own commercials and post them on the website. The result was hundreds of commercials about American’s destroying the wilderness, causing global warming and whoring themselves for oil. The below commercial is my personal fave.

The positive commercials were ignored, while the negative ones live in infamy on YouTube to this day and have hundreds of thousands of views.

Have you every heard that a satisfied customer won’t tell anyone about their experience, while a dissatisfied customer will tell at least 10 people about their experience?

On the internet, a positive person probably won’t take the time to post a positive question. But the angry, the practical jokers, and the downright snarky will take every opportunity they can to outsnark each other. It is the circle of life on the internet.

Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I need to go ask Mr. Kelly what brand of hand sanitizer he recommends after urinating all over someone’s face.

In the Name of Beauty

I wasn’t always the self-confident narcissist you all know and love. In fact, there was a time in my life where being beautiful was the most important thing in the world to me. It was all I cared about.

I think that’s probably why I’m so hard on others who focus on their looks. As some famous shrink who I can’t be bothered to Google once said ‘we hate most in others what we see in ourselves.’

Back in the day, before I realized there was more to life than nice skin and good hair, I did some crazy shit to myself in the name of beauty.

I got Restylane Injections

Have you ever seen someone right after they got hit in the mouth with a 2 x 4? I think that was the look I was going for.

Despite the fact that my lips are pretty proportionate to my face, I elected to go out and have hyaluronic acid injected into them so I could look just like Angelina Jolie. Instead, I looked a bit more like this;

The injections themselves were about as painful as…getting hit in the face with a 2 x 4, which I guess makes sense. Once they were done, my lips were bruised, bumpy, and looked like a couple of inner tubes sewn together. After that, I swore off injectables forever…or at least until I’m in my 50’s and looking to fuck 20 year olds again.

I ate cotton balls

Yes, this is actually a thing, and not something I made up. Women would eat cotton balls to fill themselves up, no calories involved. Being 5’5” tall, I knew that my ideal weight should be about 85 pounds. So I started eating cotton balls instead of food, thinking I would lose a ton of weight.

Instead, I got sepsis and shit out something that looked like a bunny. I still can’t remove my nail polish without gagging.

I duct taped my boobs

Strapless bras just weren’t good enough for me. I wanted the kind of cleavage that only Lowe’s could provide. So, using several rolls of this industrial strength tape, I taped my tits until they had the perfect ‘I just got implants’ style cleavage. To be honest, the girls looked great!

This was the actual diagram I used. What the hell was I thinking?

Then, I had to take the tape off…and one of my nipples nearly came with it. An important lesson was learned; home improvement belongs in the home and no where near your areolas.

I washed my hair with beer

This one didn’t hurt physically, so much as it hurt mentally. Oh, the waste of beer in the interest of shiny hair! Not to mention, I smelled like a brewery for about 4 days after.

But hey, at least my hair was shiny (eye roll).

I tanned

I haven’t set foot in a tanning salon since a tiny black mole on my stomach made me reconsider how much I was willing to sacrifice in the name of beauty.

Tanning was easy to give up, the second a black mole showed up on my stomach and whispered ‘malignant melanoma’ in my ear. The fact is, one person dies of a melanoma every minute in this country, and I was not willing to be that one person. I didn’t want people leaning over my casket, admiring my golden glow and commenting on how healthy I looked.

People out there, if you’re still doing the tanning thing, please reconsider. There are alternatives available that will make you look just as good, without the risk of death. Try a spray tan. It’s much faster, and you won’t come out smelling like Indian kebab.

In the name of beauty, I’ve risked my health, my life and my beer supply. I don’t know when it all turned around, or when I stopped caring. It might have been after I hit my thirties, it might have been after I came face to face to my own mortality…and it wasn’t pretty.

All I can say is you won’t truly understand how freeing it is until it happens to you. You won’t understand the weight that lifts off your shoulders once you stop caring about what you look like. You won’t understand how much better you can be until you accept that there are better things to life than just being pretty.

When I stopped caring about my looks, I tossed my Cosmo and picked up Canterbury Tales instead. It still sucked, but at least I can hold my own when pompous people start talking Chaucer.

When I stopped caring about my looks, I saved thousands on ridiculous beauty treatments, facials, cosmetics, clothes and more.  When you don’t care, WalMart sweatpants are a perfectly acceptable alternative to a pair of True Religion jeans (and much more comfortable).

When I stopped caring about my looks, I stopped being afraid of getting older. Instead, I managed to look forward to it.

In the name of beauty, I sacrificed a lot. I wasted a lot of time developing something passing, when I could have been working on building my mind. So I don’t do things in the name of beauty anymore. I rarely look in the mirror and I brush off compliments (or complaints) on my looks.

There is more to life than beauty. Once you realize that…well that’s just fucking beautiful.

Fuck Marilyn Monroe

The first sentence says it all. Today is the very last time I will be forced to tolerate some woman telling me how much she loves Marilyn Monroe, or god fucking forbid, considers Marilyn Monroe some kind of role model.

Apparently, this is a role model. Now someone, please tell me what the fuck she did to make herself one?

If I had known Marilyn Monroe in real life, not only would I have hated her as a person, I probably would have bitch slapped her, just for posterity’s sake. Here’s why I hate Marilyn, in no particular order.

She wrote poetry

Yeah, I wrote poetry too, but then I grew out of my teen angst stage and stopped shopping at Hot Topix. Whenever some new writer emails me and says “I’m having trouble making sales on my poetry book’ I always say to them, ‘have you considered selling the paper you wrote your poems on to a recycling center?”

Yup, I hate poets. Poetry writing is the biggest exercise in self ass-kisserery there is. As far as I’m concerned, every single poem on the planet could be summed up in the following sentence.

“Hey everyone, look at how smart, sensitive and deep I am.”

Most poets I have met are complete douches who consider themselves above all the ‘commercial fiction’ trappings, because ‘they’re artists’. Fuck you and your poems. Writing fiction, no matter how ‘commercial’ is fucking hard. Anyone can be a poet, but it takes a special kind of person to write an entertaining, 3 dimensional world. Let me finish off this section with a poem I wrote.

The poet came to me

To discuss her mighty art

I answered her query

With one mighty fart

 She bartered sex

I’m all for fucking, as long as everyone involved is having a good time. Marilyn wasn’t having a good time. She was fucking out of desperation.

The problem with that is that desperate chicks fake orgasms. Faked orgasms lead men to think they’re doing something right, when they’re actually doing it wrong. Marilyn Monroe probably set us back thirty years in achieving intercourse orgasm, and is probably 100% responsible for jack hammering.

She was nothing special

In today’s world, Marilyn Monroe would be correctly written off as the talentless hack that she was. In every single movie, she played the same exact character over and over and over again.

Don’t bring up Niagara, either. She played the same character in that too, the only difference being that someone finally had the nerve to choke her ass to death, making her a shoo-in for a ‘Best Supporting’ Oscar.

If only she had stayed that way…

Her biggest claim to fame was fucking a Kennedy. Well done MM, your pussy is famous.

She’s an icon, while better people get ignored

The people who choose to say “Marilyn Monroe is my role model’ do so for one reason. Her beauty. The truth is, she wasn’t very smart, she wasn’t very talented, and she was a complete fucking coward. She allowed other people’s opinions to dictate the way she should run her life. She never had children, even though she wanted them desperately, because movie producers told her not to. She never used her fame for any good cause at all.

I mean shit, I hate Angelina Jolie too, but at least she had the decency and the liberal guilt to adopt half of Cambodia.

Despite not doing anything for anyone and having no courage whatsoever, this woman has had countless biographies written about her and movies made about her life. I’m not exaggerating either; I researched it and lost count around 250.

Meanwhile, Sacagawea only gets a coin, despite the fact that her life was so much more interesting than Marilyn’s. You know why? Because she looked like this;

When you look like this, you don’t get MGM backing

Apparently, Sacagawea was too brown and not symmetric enough to warrant a movie about her life. Same goes for Susan B. Anthony.

Good Bet: Anthony would WRECK Marilyn in a fight

God fucking forbid you be an unattractive woman with an opinion in this country. Apparently, if you’re a dumb blonde, with big titties, big lips and giant anime eyes, you warrant a biography, no matter how little you did for the world. However, if you’re an unattractive woman who does an assload, all you get is a $1 coin no one ever fucking uses.

Look people, Marilyn Monroe was not a fucking role model… unless you’re looking for a role model who can show you how to put on false eyelashes or make your lips look bigger with red lipstick. She was a sub par actress, with no real skill, who gave up on her real dreams (family, children, etc.) because she was a coward. Please don’t model yourself after that type of person.

Beauty isn’t something to aspire to. It’s a genetic condition. Develop a real skill, for fucks sake.

Personally, I don’t believe in role models. I don’t believe that you should model your life after someone else’s. I think you need to make your own life, and make it matter.

But if you absolutely must have a role model, please pick someone besides Marilyn Monroe. Sacajawea, Susan B. Anthony, fuck….Charles Manson would be an improvement over MM as a role model, because at least you would be using your god damn mind.

A Phone Conversation with a ‘Microsoft’ Scammer

I am part of a dying breed. I am one of the last people on earth to not be part of the Do Not Call list.

I don’t really bother. Telemarketers don’t upset me and I rarely pick up my phone. Most times, my cell phone is somewhere in the bottom of my purse, dead because I never charge it.

So today I did something rare. I picked up my phone as a number I had never seen before (323-489-7473) came up on the display. The following is an actual transcript of what happened next.

Essa: Hello?

Mystery Caller: (thick Indian accent) Hello ma’am, this is John, from Microsoft. Who am I speaking with please?

Essa: No fucking way your name is John. Why do Indian people continue to underestimate the intelligence of Americans? Just because we’re fat and lazy doesn’t mean you need to dumb down your names for us. Come on ‘John’ what’s your real name?

‘John’: I assure you, it is John. May I ask who I’m speaking to?

Essa: (eye roll) Haberdashery Vondella Sharoom….but you can call me John.

‘John’: OK, Ms. Sharoom (dude does not like to work off-script)  I am calling from Microsoft today because we received a warning about your system. A hacker has tried to gain access to your computer.

Essa: Wow, that’s some excellent customer service. You guys really monitor every computer for hacking attempts? (note to idiots; Microsoft does not monitor your system for anything. They just provide the computers)

‘John’: Yes ma’am, we do.

Essa: Even for my MacBook Pro? Does Apple know you’re doing this?

‘John’: (Clearly not understanding computers…or the limitations of the Patriot Act) Yes ma’am, we do. Now, in order to help…

Essa: Does that mean you guys can see all the porn I download? Because I have to say, I’m a bit uncomfortable with that.

‘John’: No ma’am, we only monitor for hacking attempts.

Essa: What kind of threat are we dealing with here? Like a Denial of Service, SQL Injection, cross-site scripting…?

‘John’: All of those, now if you’ll just…

Essa: Well, that’s good then. Those are website based attacks. You should probably call the webmasters of the sites being hit.

‘John’: Actually ma’am, it is your site being attacked. Now if you will just…

Essa: “Dirty Asian Super Sluts With Weird Birthmarks” is being attacked!?! I’ll kill the bastards!

‘John’: Yes, now if you’ll just go to our site at stopmicrosofthacking.com

Essa: (does nothing) Ok

‘John’: Now, there is a screen where you will need to enter your personal information so we can open a support ticket.

Essa: (types a bunch of random letters on her keyboard so it sounds like she’s going to the site. Her computer isn’t even on) Ok, working on it now. I just have some questions.

‘John’: I am here to help.

Essa: (guesses that they are probably phishing for passwords) Why do you guys need my email password?

‘John:’ To ensure that is has not been compromised.

Essa: Ok. Is it the same reason for my Facebook password?

‘John’: Yes.

Essa: Ok, John. Listen, I’m a really slow typist, so what I’m going to do is I’m going to put you on hold. Now, I need you to wait, in case I have questions. I’m not hitting submit until I talk to you again, ok?

‘John’: Ok, I will wait.

Essa: I’m serious John, if you hang up, I’m going to delete everything. I need you to wait.

‘John’: I will be here.

Essa: (leans back in her chair to watch an entire episode of ‘Locked Up Abroad.’  She occasionally takes John off hold, to ask stupid questions like ‘what a middle initial’ is, just to make sure he’s still holding. Finally, after 45 minutes, she takes John off hold) You still there John?

‘John’: Yes, ma’am

Essa: I just have one more question before I submit this.

‘John’: Certainly, what is that?

Essa: How many people do you think I saved from getting taken by your stupid scam while I kept you on hold for 45 minutes?

‘John’: (dead silence)

Essa: Because I think at least 5 would be a fair estimate, but I could be giving you too much credit. How many people do you actually manage to scam in a given day? Give me that number, and I’ll work out a ballpark based on an average for the 45 minutes I had you sitting there, twiddling your thumbs, while I watched people get put in jail who deserved to be there less than you do.

‘John’: (hangs up)

Some people just don’t understand basic telephone courtesy.