Since my only job these days is to stay good-looking and not die, I have some time on my hands. So I figured I might spend some of it volunteering for my local public radio station during one of its insufferable pledge drives. I swear those things happen with more frequency than failed senator/presidential candidate Rick Santorum says something like this. Which at this point in the Republican primary is like all the time.
When I signed up for a volunteer shift manning the phones and relieving people of their money, I was told the only open slots were 6-9 a.m. Awesome. Because there’s nothing I like better than waking before dawn and pretending to be cheerful about it. But I figured this would be my penance for the years I spent listening to public radio for free, so like a traumatized former Catholic, I took the punishment and thanked them for it.
I arrived at 6 a.m. and was ushered into a room with banks of laptops and phone headsets. I was easily the youngest volunteer by about 50 years and that’s saying something since I’m like nearly 60 (I kid. I love the old!). I was also the sleepiest. The other volunteers were as perky as Katie Couric during her TODAY Show days. The volunteer coordinator gave me a packet of instructions and told me to do a little dry run-through before I began answering any calls. When I felt comfortable that I’d be able to fake knowing anything at all about the pledge drive or Vermont Public Radio reasonably well, I punched in to take some calls.
