111 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
111 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
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Hotline! (3)
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(c) 1987
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James Zachary
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Every now and again, a caller to the water and wastewater
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department will ask about issues of national concern.
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RING!
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Southeast Plant, this is Zack.
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"I am taking a survey for my organization. Do you have time to
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answer a few questions?"
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Ma'am, this is a sewage plant...
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"You are a taxpayer and a voter aren't you?"
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Yes Ma'am, but ...
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"This will only take a few moments. Do you think prophylactics
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should be on television?"
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Say what?
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"Prophylactics... condoms... they are..."
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I KNOW what they are lady.
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"Should they be on your TV?"
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What good would they do on my TV? It never leaves the house...
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"DO YOU FAVOR ADVERTISING THEM ON TV!?"
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I could care less.
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"WELL, YOU BETTER CARE! THERE IS AN AIDS EPIDEMIC GOING ON AND
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THE PUBLIC IS BASICALLY IGNORANT!"
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You seem to be a living testament to that...
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"Would advertising them on TV offend you?"
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After 14 years in sewage, nothing much does offends me.
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"Now, as a viewer of TV, what names would you find the least
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offensive?"
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Trojan.
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"I mean what descriptive name? Condoms ...? Prophylactics...?"
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Call them rubbers. I don't much care.
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"That's a bit crude don't you think?"
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Here at work, we call them whitefish or bottlebass ...
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"What do mean 'at work'...? You wear them at work?"
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No ma'am. Remember that this is a sewage plant and that
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anything considered disposable usually winds up being flushed
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down the commode. Everyday we get a few thousand of them
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buggers floating in the clarifiers and filters. You seem like
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you are preparing to lobby for having them advertised on TV, so
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maybe you can give me a break and tell people to quit flushing
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them.
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"What harm does flushing them do?"
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Ma'am, they plug the sewer pipes and everything else. I
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remember one of the many times that I had to pull a plugged
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pump. You can never see what is in that mass of goo stuck in
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the pump impeller, so you just have to reach in and grab hold of
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it all. Well, some bozo had flushed one of those 'exciter'
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types...
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"What type is that?"
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... the kind with antlers. I mean to tell ya, it scared the
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hell outta me when I latched onto that thing! It was wiggling
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like it was alive! For a moment, I thought I had an octopus by
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the ears...
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"Uhhh... you mean... there is more than one type?"
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Oh yes Ma'am! Should be interesting to see all of the marketing
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approaches they will use on TV. Should also be REAL educational
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for the "ignorant public" that you are so worried about. We used
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to keep a bulletin board filled with all of the different sizes,
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models and colors...
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"You are kidding of course..."
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Oh, no Ma'am! We fished out all of the novelty items and tacked
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them up for display. My favorite was one that had the American
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Flag on it.
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"The Flag? Just where did they put The Flag?"
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About half-staff...
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CLICK!
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Hmmmmm. She must have dropped the phone while saluting...
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