Confessions of a Call Center Gal - By Lisa Lim Page 0,66

could chuck wood?

And finally, Sona si Latine loqueris: Honk if you speak Latin. Yes. I learned Latin from car bumper stickers.

Karma’s a bitch. I should never have messed with that doctor. As I trudge into work the next day, I can hear Truong hacking from a mile away. Yikes! He is coughing so violently, I’m afraid he’ll hack up a lung.

And Tiny is taking rapid, shallow breaths and turning very blue. “Tiny, are you all right?”

He shakes his head and shoots me a look of pure agony.

Glancing over at Ingeborg, I’m immediately taken aback. Her rosy cheeks have lost all vestiges of color. She is pale, gaunt and shadowed with sickness. Christ Almighty! This is a Hot Zone.

Truong emits another whooping cough.

“Are you okay, Truong?” My eyes pop open at his decaying, emaciated frame.

He groans like a dying man, “I think I may have the swine flu. My nephew got it from preschool and he probably spread it to me.” Hack, hack, hack. KEKH!

“Swine flu? SWINE FLU?” I wheel my chair back. “What the hell are you doing at work contaminating the whole place? You should be quarantined!” I fume.

I absolutely abhor it when sick people drag themselves into work, spreading their germs everywhere, infecting everyone.

“How the hell am I supposed to stay healthy?” I splutter. “You expect me to wear a mask to work?”

HONK. Truong blows his nose into a Kleenex. And then he does the unthinkable! Like a lecherous leper, he holds the tissue up to my face and peels it open in extra slow motion.

Grossness. I’m forced to stare at his gooey, green mucus.

It’s his way of saying go F-yourself.

And it’s very apparent that he’s enjoying my discomfort.

“Truong! You’re a revolting pig!” I cry in mock disgust, edging myself as far away from him as possible. Squirting out a glob of Purell, I begin savagely sanitizing my entire work space. “Next time you’re sick, please stay at home like you’re supposed to!” I huff, smearing more anti-bacterial gel over my keyboard.

Work becomes exceedingly more difficult when I’m trying not to breathe the whole time. I swath my nose and my mouth with a tissue every time a cough breaks out. Consequently, my speech is muffled when I converse with my callers.

My gaze shifts down to my hands. I turn them over ruefully, examining the blisters and cracks. Perhaps I was being a little too militant with the hand sanitizer, but I’ll be damned if I catch the swine flu. When the flu virus hits me, it hits me as hard as a ton of bricks, putting me out of commission for weeks.

A huge wave of relief washes over me when my shift finally ends. “Bye, Truong! Bye, Tiny! Bye, Ingeborg! I hope you guys feel better.” I gather my things and blitz out of the building without so much as a glance back, consumed with fear of being ravaged by the plague that is now sweeping the entire call center.

Listlessly, I turn my key in the lock in slow motion and shuffle into my apartment. I find Karsynn slumped on the sofa, glued to the TV. She took the whole day off because today is a pivotal day. It’s the season premiere of Gossip Girl: Season Three and Kars just had to watch it when it aired. And so she called in sick even though she’s as healthy as a horse and as fit as an ox.

Incidentally, Karsynn never gets sick.

I’m convinced her ancestors ploughed and toiled the barren fields of Ireland in the 1800’s, surviving through the potato famine and thus blessing her with stellar genes.

“Hey, Kars,” I mutter miserably. “Good thing you ditched work today. A swine flu pandemic has hit that place.”

“Shhh Chuck and Blair are together at last,” she says quietly.

“Did you record it for me?” I ask and she nods in response.

Marching purposefully to the kitchen sink, I fill up a glass of water, rummage through the medicine cabinet and gulp down ten Echinacea pills, followed by ten Vitamin C tablets. That should build up my immune system.

Next, I heat up a can of Campbell’s hearty chicken soup. I sit and eat, but my mind is still rattled by the whole swine flu business.

Clasping my hands together, I pray silently:

Dear Heavenly Father,

If you forsake me from the swine flu, I promise I’ll be much nicer to doctors and call them Doctor, no matter how arrogant and obnoxious they may be. Amen.

Satisfied with my short appeal to God, I set my dirty dishes