Hurricane Forecasts, Telemarketers, Evacuation Plans

HB: Well, I'm trying to do my job — I'm not calling you at work and telling you to buy something that I don't know anything about, am I?

TM: Well, we can call you back at a more convenient time, then.

HB: Will you have some reasons then why I should get the Chronicle?

TM: Yeah...

HB: Not just "sports," but something specific about the paper that would make me go out and buy it. Because right now you aren't giving me anything.

TM: Yeah, we can call you back at a more convenient time...

HB: What would be a more convenient time?

TM: When you're at home?

HB: You think I'd rather be interrupted at home to hear about a newspaper that you know nothing about?

TM: (Pause) I don't know. (Even...Longer... Pause. Wheels apparently spinning in vain, his script offering only one option) All right sir, we'll just call you back at a more convenient time.

HB: But what would be a more convenient time?

TM: Later on today, tomorrow?

HB: Nah.

TM: (Pause.)

HB (Wondering what the hell it will take to get this guy to just say, "Well, goodbye then."): Why do you keep saying you'll call me back at a more convenient time?

TM: Because it sounds nicer? Because you just said we're calling you at work and you don't want to be called at work.

HB: But I've also said I don't want to be called to be urged to buy a paper that you admit you know absolutely nothing about.

TM: If it's like the paper where I live, it's going to have some stuff.

HB: What paper do you read?

TM: The Post-Dispatch.

HB: In St. Louis? What do you like about it?

TM: The sports and entertainment.

HB: And they got a pretty good sports columnist there, right?

TM: Somewhat.

HB: Bernie Something?

TM: Maybe.

HB: Okay, so if you were going to tell people to buy the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, you'd mention that, right? But you can't tell me anyone who works at the Houston Chronicle that I should read.

TM: (Pause.)

HB: Okay, maybe I should call you back at a more convenient time. What's the number?

TM: I don't know the number here.

HB: Okay, what's your home number?

TM: I'm not going to give that out.

HB: But I can call you at a more convenient time at home. Like when you're trying to eat dinner or something.

TM: (Pause.) I don't know, sir. Like I said, if you don't want it you don't have to get it.

HB: Like I said, give me a good specific reason to get it and I'll think about it.

TM: (Yet another pause.)

HB: (Finally giving up.): Anyway, I gotta run, and thanks for the enlightening conversation.

You Better Run

Trying to avoid an encore of the Hurricane Rita traffic disaster, officials along the Gulf Coast have developed a new evacuation map that will apparently solve all the problems. Using ZIP codes, they have designated which areas should evacuate first, which should wait until those folks get out, and which should just stay still and hunker down. This is, of course, an utterly foolproof plan. Of course people in Galveston are not going to wait until the last minute to leave their empty homes; they’re going to make sure burglars have a few sunny pre-landfall days to do their looting. Of course people in Kingwood are going to see a Category 5 storm loom off Freeport and decide to stay hunkered down so that others may leave. We see absolutely no way this plan is not going to work perfectly.