Democracy For America has our phone number. They’ve had it for months, ever since Howard Dean was collecting money with strangely inspirational cartoon baseball bats.
They call us on occasion, usually twice a week. We don’t always answer. The Caller ID always shows the same point of origin: St Cloud, MN. I don’t know anything else about St Cloud, but I do know they’ve a mighty dedicated volunteer phonebank.
They called this evening. I picked up on the third ring after spotting the origin.
“Hola,” I answer. It’s a bad habit of mine to salute callers in a foreign tongue.
“What?” It’s a young-sounding female.
“Hello,” I say. “Yes,” she answers, “is a Mrs Thomas there?”
Mrs Thomas? No. That would be my mother-in-law. My wife, however, is sorting laundry, so I reply, “She’s here, but unavailable right now. Can I take a message?”
Slight pause.
“No, thank you,” she says. “We don’t really have a message right now.”
