Repetition

I talk to more people than I’ve ever spoken to in my entire life these days. From four to ten-thirty I talk to the Vanvalkinburg’s, the Montezuma’s, the Farnkoff’s, the Delarosa’s, the Bones’, and every Johnson family found within the continental United States. I plead, implore, and beg in a precisely inflected tone of voice which insures maximum sales. I tell them of our great new offer available to only the most select, valued customers that we sell to everyone, everywhere, at all times.

“Well, sir, the reason for my call today to thank you for being a valued customer and therefore let you know that you can get a $25 cash rebate just for trying out our late-night pornography programming that your children will watch while you sleep. With this special new deal, sir, your six-year olds will be taught how to masturbate by the television, so you won’t have to have uncomfortable conversations with them when puberty strikes and wet dreams commence. Also, sir, the $25 rebate will cover the first two months, but you are going to forget to cancel the service when this trial period is over since these channels are identical to the 250 channels you already have. They’ll get lost in the mountain of trash and smut that you already receive, sir, only for the low cost of a hundred dollars a month more than cable.”

Surrounding me are 169 other employees speaking the same words as I am. While there are multiple bodies, only two other people are found in this place. It’s the same two people repeated over and over in varying genders and ethnicities. They may look distinct or sound atypical, yet their personality mirrors most others if not all. All can be designated as either a temp or a lifer. Except me, it seems. I fall somewhere in between the common categories. I plan to get out in three to five.

Several women are in the habit of dancing on the weekends when they make a sale. I assume this is the motivation as a white one down the aisle starts to thrust her pelvis. Her beer gut bounces merrily in the air-conditioned breeze. The effect is not unlike the effect of a mural made out of dung or prose composed completely of sentence fragments. There is an internal awareness that if I had feelings or a sense of discrimination, I would be disgusted. Yet I do not, so I am mostly captivated by my easily found compliance.

Soon thereafter, our system crashes. With newfound free time, the boy in the mini-cubicle next to me begins to list mediocre garage band names he has been generating this afternoon. He is of the goth/emo rocker variety. As he names thousands of reasons why such and such band name won’t do because it is too similar to such and such established band, I realize that he has had very minimal customization. I have talked to hundreds of the same model in my short life-span. He is not unlike an action figure that is in the same condition as it was in the box, twenty years ago. I smile at my realization and visualize everyone in the room on the shelf in Wal-mart’s toy department. Goth/emo rocker boy misinterprets this as a sign that I was listening to him and continues on with the list of creative conformity. I don’t correct him because my nominal sense of politeness tells me not to spoil his fun. He asks me to be in his band. I tell him a flat “no” but this is interpreted as “please continue the monologue.” Eventually, I am released from the one-way conversation as the system restarts. The store manager leaves the computer room to hover the aisles, an apparition with gardener’s eyes, searching for weeds. I try to look busy.

I realize three hours after the fact that the high school kid two seats over was fired. The official reason for his termination was a low sales rate, but everyone knows it was because he is a city kid with a history of vandalism and a habit of talking trash. I didn’t notice his departure till the end of the night when his fellow city kid/best friend served exposition to everyone. The two of them looked so similar that everyone assumed the other one was still in his seat.

I clock out and I drive home. I drive back and I clock in. I rinse, lather, and repeat the same way repetitively. I say the same words to the same people in different bodies. I say the same answers to the same questions to the same customer found in fort-eight states. The people around me engage in small talk that unremarkably matches the small-talk others are saying at the same time as I sit accompanied by my thoughts. I think that if there was a creator, I assume she/he tried to mix things up, but he/she only had two die to make individuals out of, so everyone ended up as something between two and twelve.

I clock out and I drive home. I drive back and as I walk to my half-cubicle, I pass by another me. He has the same brown hair, same blue eyes, same allergic reaction to wasp stings, same bounce in his steps, and same tilt in his dick. He has the same sense of anomie found in the knowledge of human mass-production. We stare at each other for a few milliseconds and become aware of the awkward moment.

Then we shrug and go opposite directions.

I enter the call center, clock in, and say what I’ve already said several thousand times. “Well, Mr. Johnson, the reason for my call today to thank you for being a valued customer and therefore let you know…”