I Swear

WARNING: This post contains strong language. It’s relevant to the story, I swear.

I already lost my “family friendly” blog rating when I used the phrase penis gene, so I might as well throw shit in/to the wind, right?

Since the lunar eclipse, I’ve been wondering if maybe some of those superstitions associated with the phenomenon might just have some merit.

In my research, I didn’t come across any American eclipse superstitions, but I think I have witnesses a connection. It’s not about anything hijacking the moon or birthmarked babies, no. It seems that in the USA, lunar eclipses turn people into assholes.

I work for an insurance company and primarily do customer service. The vast majority of people who call each day are upset over an accident, how long a claim might be taking or a bill they received. Sometimes, people even forget to pay and are wild when they get a cancellation notice, or worse, get stopped by the police with expired insurance cards and I have to tell them that they’ve been driving without insurance for a year. Somehow this is always my fault, too.

Most of my time spent at work involves getting yelled at by people about things that I have no control over. OK, I get that.

Since that darn lunar eclipse, though, people have been unnecessarily unruly and vulgar. Assholes. It's been one after another. I can't even believe it.

Yesterday, I answered the phone in my friendly “how can I help you?” voice and a man started screaming at me. He was pretty worked up and I couldn’t even understand him.

I used a technique I learned answering 911 calls to get him to calm down so that I could figure out a) who he even was and b) what his problem was. I can’t help him if I don’t know these things.

After I had lowered my own voice to just above a whisper, I figured out that he was upset because he had received a claim frequency letter which basically informed him that he was filing too many claims.

I looked up his account and I’d have to agree with that. In the last three years he’s managed to strike a pedestrian, run his car off the road into a ditch and scrape his car along a side wall on the expressway. Last month, he rear ended someone.

Statistically, this is a lot of accidents in three years and if you haven’t figured it out yet, insurance companies are all about the statistics and risk.

I explained this to him NICELY at which point, he proceeded to call me a fucking...(he paused for added drama) FUCKWAD.

WTF? I didn’t send him the damn letter. Why am I a fuckwad? What is a fuckwad, anyway?

I think the last time I heard anyone use that word I might have been perched up against a high school locker wearing a shoulder padded neon pink sweater, casually twirling a lock of my major mall babe hair around one finger while I blew bubbles with my watermelon flavored Bubbilicious.

In case you were wondering, by “80’s chick” standards, I was like...totally bitchin’.

Using another one of my favorite 911 phone answering techniques, I slammed my phone receiver once into my desk. This normally startles people and they pay attention to the next thing you say.

“Sorry, sir,” I continued very calmly, “there must be something wrong with my phone. I could have sworn you just called me a fuckwad and that certainly couldn’t be true.”

Normally, this gives people a chance to redeem themselves. Not this guy. Not only did he call me a fuckwad a second time, he even spelled it for me.

Thank goodness, because that certainly is a spelling bee stumper.

I told him to call me back when he was capable of having a rational conversation and hung up. Asshole.

He called right back.

“You and all of your other fuckwad insurance people would probably be thrilled if I just paid my premiums and didn’t file any claims, right?”

BWAHAHAHAHA.No.Shit.Sherlock.

There seems to be some common misconception that insurance companies are charities or not for profit organizations. Not true. They are businesses just like any other business and have a goal to make a profit. I know, it's hard to believe!

Mr. Pottymouth is coming into the office first thing this morning so my dad, apparently the only non-fuckwad in the office, can explain claim frequency to him. If he’s not happy with the explanation, he will take his business elsewhere.

Yeah, ok, good luck with that, but, of course we look forward to meeting with you.

Really, we do. I SWEAR!