The Girl Who Made the Prank Calls

Since we graduated, my good friend Kristin has been a "professional intern" at Jarden Home Brands. If you've ever wondered where things like plastic forks, toothpicks, lighters and coctail stirrers come from, it's Jarden. Kristin's desk is right next to the canning hotline, and she often overhears people calling in to ask a posse of older women their toughest canning questions.

But Kristin's got a better job now, and will be leaving Jarden at the end of the week. And there's only one way to make your friend's last week at a kind of crappy job a little more tolerable: prank calls.

Yesterday, I called in on my lunch break and asked how to can a kumquat. It was funny and all, but today...well, today was awesome.

Again, it was my lunch break, and I was the only person in the PR suite. Kristin suggested that I call in and ask about something silly for her amusement. At a loss, I asked my friend Benferno for something to can. He suggested possum, but it was later changed to Sturgeon (as he photoshopped one for me the other day for my bithday party fliers).

I thought up a clever backstory and called in. I said that I had been recently gifted a sturgeon by a very caring young man. It was no ordinary sturgeon, though - it was an engagement sturgeon, complete with a diamond ring in its fishy mouth. I wanted to preserve it forever - just like my love for my (non-existant) fiancee.

Some of the dialog, with Marge, the Call Center Lady.

Me: I want to preserve it forever, just like our love.
Marge: You shouldn't keep it for more than a year.
Me: Well...I mean, can I still eat it after that?

Marge: Is a sturgeon like a tuna or a stard (or something that sounded like that)
Me: It's kind of a shark-like tuna.
Marge: Let me look one up on the internet.

Meanwhile, Kristin was sending me things to ask. I was also telling Benferno what was going on - he absolutely could not believe that I had this lady on Google Image Search.

The best part of the call came when Kristin suggested that I ask how much pectin to use. Apparently, pectin is what you use when you want to make jelly. So this happens:
Me: So, how much pectin should I be using?
Marge: Honey, you're not trying to make fish jelly are you?
Me: Can you? I want to make something for my fiancee to show him that I really care. I was hoping that we could eat it at our wedding.
Marge: Well, if you do that, he may run for the woods.

Among other things, I asked if I should can the sturgeon whole, and how exactly should I go about canning something so large. Marge finally put me on hold to look up some answers, and I hung up. I couldn't keep it up - the traffic manager had walked in, and he knew exactly what I was doing. My eyes were welling up with tears from trying not to laugh at the call, at the comments from Benferno, and at Kristin im-ing back commentary from Jarden.

Apparently after I got off the phone, Marge turned around to everyone in the room and told them about my call. She then declared me "Call of the year," and told everyone that she talked to for the rest of the day about it.

Later in the day, Kristin's g-chat status message was "I don't think you're ready for fish jelly."

I don't think anyone is.


caller of the year,
Kerry