vituperation

I checked my mail to see if I’d received the one I wanted overnight. No such luck, but there was something else there. An email from the people I registered a recent domain with, blabbing about this and that and all manner of things that didn’t interest me. I scanned the email for a way to unsubscribe, because as far as I’m concerned, once the domain registration transaction went through, our business was complete until it’s time to renew.

The email had no way to unsubscribe.

I realize I could have just flagged the email as spam in GMail and that would have gotten rid of it, but I was afraid that might also make the important email, the one about domain renewal, go straight to trash in two years when the domain’s about to expire. Having recently gone through trying to get an expired domain back from a squatter, I have no desire in doing it again. I called the registrar and held for customer service.

“Eh lo,” a female voice finally said. “Tank you for callink [name redacted]. Diss is Megan. How may I help you?”

She sounded as if she just climbed off a flight straight from a Russian outpost.

In Soviet Russia, the domains register YOU!

“Hi,” I replied. “I keep getting unwanted emails from you guys, and there’s no way to unsubscribe in the email. How can I make them stop?”

“I can do dat. I need your registration number, pliss.” She sounded like she might need to spit a loogie after that hard ‘R’ in ‘registration’.

“Sure, let me find it.”

Thank God for GMail’s search feature. Entering the domain registrar’s name, it only took me a couple of seconds to find the right email.

“Okay, it’s ‘A’ as in ‘alpha’,” I said. “‘P’ as in…”

And the only word I could think of was pussy. I scrambled for another word.

Pussy, pussy, pussy, my mind shrieked gaily, wheeling about like a three-year-old. Pussy!

Wait a second. Hold the phone. A-ha! Pervert!

Just as bad. Worse, even.

The silence between the two of us stretched into the discomfort range as I wracked my brain.

Poop?

No.

I pondered my perilous predicament in a panic, praying for some ‘P’ plosive or proverb to pronounce to my partner in this plight, so I could prevent more pain.

Paul! Say Paul! my mind screamed, finally producing a socially acceptable word.

But I couldn’t use that. Everyone knows that ‘P’ sounds like ‘T’, and ‘Paul’ sounds like ‘tall’, which renders both words virtually useless in one of these situations. I know about 20 of the 26 military designations, and one of the six I don’t know is the one for ‘P’.

Or didn’t know until I was writing this. It’s “papa”, if you’re curious. I suspect I’ll take this new knowledge to the grave.

“PECULIAR!” I heard myself say, the relief in my voice evident. “Four, two, three—”

My mind started whispering the word peculiar, drawing it into pecuuuuuuuuuuuuuuliar, like the inmates in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest when Harding was talking about his wife. And, child that I am, I got the giggles. I turned the phone away from my mouth and did my best to stifle the laughs.

“Sir?”

“Sorry,” I said, trying to pull my face straight. “Someone came in.”

I gave her the rest of my numbers.

“Tank you. Just one moment.”

I heard her fingers dancing on a keyboard.

“Okay,” she said. “You will not get any more mail.”

“Great. Thank you.”

I hung up the phone, and wondered if I could be any weirder.

Probably.