Hell—ooo! It’s me, Jennifer!

Oh…hi, Jennifer. I didn’t see your name on the caller ID.  Before I picked up the phone.

Listen, I’m calling because we DESPERATELY need volunteers for the school’s Autumn Festival. Did you get my emails?

Yes, Jennifer. All 25 of them. You should work for an an online Viagra company.

Funny! Now, can I count on you to work a few hours in the Harvest Hoedown booth this Saturday?

Well…I’d just love to, Jennifer. Really. Handing out Texas flags made out of turkey jerky is just so rewarding. But unfortunately, I can’t do it because I’m deathly allergic to hay. It’s pretty serious. In fact, just last week I had to stab myself in the leg with an Epi-Pen after walking through the decorative scarecrow section at The Hobby Lobby.

Well, that doesn’t matter now because…there’s no hay this year! I’ll see you Sat…

No, wait! Waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait! I still can’t do it because I have a …a…doctor’s appointment!

Skip it.

It’s a CT scan.

Reschedule.

I mean triple bypass.

Stop eating red meat.

But, I also have plans to go to a…birthday party!

Send a card.

A funeral.

A sadder card.

The Cohen’s Bar Mitzvah?

Nice try, shiksa.

Seriously, Jennifer, I’m scheduled to go into work that day.

Call your boss.

I’m a hooker.

Call your pimp.

OK, I hate to say this, but I’m a drunk.

Who cares?

A meth addict.

So what?

A mentally unstable narcoleptic transvestite?

Who isn’t?

Listen, Jennifer, the real reason I can’t work in the Holiday Hoedown booth is because I just so happen to be the leader of a shadowy CIA splinter group and Saturday is the day we all go to an undisclosed location to interrogate witnesses and wiretap pizza parlors. Plus a whole bunch of other top-secret covert-oppish thingys I can’t talk about. And if I’m not there, America’s freedoms, not to mention Democracy’s very foundation, might be shaken to their very core. I’m sure you understand.

Is that it?

Uh, yeah.

You’re sure you’re done?

Uh-huh.

Then listen to me closely, girlfriend, because I’m only going to say this one time: you gonna get your pathetic little bitchass punk self down to that booth on Saturday or things be gettin‘ ugly reeeaaalll quicklike, see? You think I got to be Special Events Chairperson because I take “no” for an answer? Oh, hail to the no, Dorothy. So’s what I want you to do right now is pucker up them chapped little lips of yours and start kissin‘ on my big white, tennis-skirted ass because this mother ain’t lettin‘ NOBODY get in the way of making this the best damn Autumn Festival of our precious children’s lives. Now, you pickin‘ up what I’m layin‘ down, beeyotch? Or does I needs to say it again?

No, ma’am, I understand.

And?

And I won’t ever try to get out of volunteering again. I promise.

And?

I’ll see you Saturday.