A Common Pornography: A Memoir

Water Softeners

I didn’t have a job for a couple of months and I was starting to run out of money. I had a pretty large collection of records (in milk crates) and cassettes (in fruit boxes) and I felt a voracious need to buy music. A friend gave me a tip on a job where all you had to do was call people on the phone. I didn’t realize at the time how painfully monotonous it was going to be.

I was cold-calling people from a photocopied list, trying to sell them some kind of water softener system. I wasn’t even sure what it did but I was assured that it made taking a shower feel like wet heaven.

A couple of weeks into the job, I called in to take a night off. Instead of just faking a sickness, I told them that my dad had a stroke. They called my house the next day and found out it wasn’t true.