The Light and Power Picks Up - May 10 2022

 

The Light and Power Picks Up

May 10 2022

The woman who answers the phone

at the Light and Power

no longer picks up.

The new automated service

tries just as hard

to be helpful and polite,

but is a little dense

when I question it,

gets paralyzed

by interruptions,

and leads me down long tortuous rabbit holes

nowhere close to where I want.

But most of all

sounds robotic;

more uncanny, the natural,

with an exasperated undertone.

And I have to confess

I was in love with that voice

before the computer replaced her,

so lively and bright

and full of cheer.

I immediately pictured her

as the girl-next-door,

with a welcoming smile

and radiant eyes.

Wholesome

down-to-earth

approachable;

more pretty than beautiful.

The Light and Power

may be greedy old men

hoarding their dividends

and unreliable, at best,

but she was sympathetic

and helpful,

always taking my side

against the powers that be.

I wonder what she's doing now?

Perhaps answering the phone

down at the Sewer and Water,

reassuring customers

that they're already on it,

and if the back-up

isn't fixed soon enough

she'll come plunge it herself.

When someone finally picked up at the gas company — after a long phone tree, and longer on hold — all my annoyance dissolved. What a disarmingly attractive voice and manner! What a great way to represent a big faceless company. I could easily fall in love with that voice. Even though I'm acutely aware how a voice sounds and a person actually looks is most often very different from how you pictured them.

Recognizing how juvenile my immediate response was is where this poem began. I had no idea it would end where it does. I hope the closing stanza doesn't strike the reader as too silly, or inconsistent with the tone preceding it.