Little Red Riding Headless

I'm a polite and friendly person. If you're a stranger and we cross paths, this will bode well for you. We'll both get that nice and glowy feeling from exchanging pleasantries, my camera-toting mother will beam with pride at having raised me right, it'll be back pats all around. The only problem is, sometimes I can be kind of dumb. Years of etiquette training, being forced to grit my teeth and remain calm and pleasant to the biggest of fucking asshole customers, and perhaps even the hours of exposure to Guy Smileyesque game show hosts, have left me somewhat incapable of summoning the appropriate levels of FUCK and YOU life occasionally requires.

Take the other day for example. I'm officing away in happy-go-office land, spreading joy and sunshine to all I greet. The phone rings, call display reveals the name of a seedy local motel. THIS SHOULD BE ALARM BELL NUMBER 1, BUT NOOOOO. After a seemingly innocuous volley of how are you, fine and thanks, I find myself answering survey-type questions about my preferred type of exercise wear. The caller is doing market research for a swimwear and activewear company, that manufactures garments made of spandex.

Okay, stop right there.

Spandex. With the many microfibres, cotton blend, space age supersonic dries before you sweat in it, magical fancy schmancy fabrics available today, they're using Spandex. With suggested colours like YELLOW. Because yes, the majority of women slugging it away in the gym, trying to shed those extra pounds are going to opt for YELLOW SPANDEX as the flattering first choice of garment. Of course, rather than hang the phone up, I tut tut to myself this company must really be out of touch if it's yellow Spandex items they're marketing -- not in a funky, ironic way, either -- and...I continue the conversation. Because yes, I am a dumbass.

Alarm bells two through five thousand begin to ring, when the questioning leads to swimwear, how many bathing suits do I have? What colours are they? Which ones are my favourite? Are they high cut? The questions begin to repeat themselves. I nearly say "Okay, this is kind of creepy", but STOP MYSELF because that would be impolite.

Thanks, Mom.

The situation quickly escalates into the near-unhinged when the caller begins rambling nonsensically, eventually leading his line of questioning to bike shorts. BIKE SHORTS?! Hi, I've got 1989 on the line, even they'd like to kill themselves over that one, please.

Finally, when my telmarketperv begins WHINING about awww, why don't I wear bike shorts, I blurt out a STILL POLITE "I'm at work right now and don't really have time for this so I'm going to let you go now, bye". Click.

And this is where I am left wanting to a) shower with bleach, b) locate a therapist, and c) do it all over again. Because given the option of c), I would most definitely describe the burkas I wear while swimming, complain about the injustice of consistently being banned from swimming at public pools because I displace too much water, inquire about whether they have a sportsbra in their line that will support my knee-level bosoms without making my back hump too uncomfortable, and perhaps ask many questions of my own regarding whether or not their blend of spandex will irritate my eczema and leprosy. At the very least, I'd like to inform Mr. Pervert he is in fact, a disgusting asshole, and hang up much sooner than I did.

So, the moral of the story is, perverts, if you're going to trick even dumb girls like me into describing their bathing suits, do a little market research first (YELLOW SPANDEX, PEOPLE! YELLOW SPANDEX.), and me? I'm just glad I'm not a storybook character, because the wolf at the end of my tale would have a full belly indeed.