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Photo by Frédéric DuPont

Remember that part in The Shining, when Jack Nicholson breaks an axe through the bathroom door to better communicate with his screaming, cowering wife?

“Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in; not by the hair on your chinny chin chin?”

Well, I get like that when I don’t sleep for 40 hours.

It takes my mind about two hours to reboot when I’m exhausted, before which it is absolutely impervious to the outside world. The phone call must’ve come at around 4, and I had to answer. I had to; calls that late had to be important.

‘难道你真的花时间去翻译呢？你真的认为我记得说什么机器？你一定是无聊,’ a computer informed me.

Automated Chinese telemarketing at 4AM. Son of a bitch.

I didn’t drive the phone into the wall, hung up, and sank into my pillow; my head usually forgets this kind of crap by the time I wake up. But you are reading this, aren’t you?

It’s called an infinite loop. What it essentially means is that a programmer somewhere forgot to tie up his code’s loose ends, and ended up teaching a computer to call me continuously, forever and ever. And it’s fine; computers can generally get away with things that would otherwise earn a human being a fantastic punch in the face.

By 4:15 I’d tried hanging up, keeping an open line, not answering at all and beating my fist against the wall. I couldn’t turn it off; I had an important morning call coming in.

I needed to punch. I needed a face.

‘Hello Tommy.’

Tao Ming (aka Tommy) is my Chinese driver, and I’ve called this man at every possible ungodly hour for every ridiculous reason under the red sun or seaweed sky. He’s used to it now, and remains unfazed.

‘Hello Kaal. How can I help?’

The r is silent in China.

‘Tommy I have a problem, can you please come over?’

It took him about 20 minutes to get here. I could’ve silenced the phone while I waited, but I didn’t want to. I wanted more anger, because when I found an outlet it’d be that much sweeter.

‘Tommy, please translate this message for me; this machine is calling me every minute and I need to know which company this is.’

He listened and wrote down the company name and phone number. They were selling push-up bras, in case I was wondering.

‘Thank you Tommy, I’ll see you tomorrow.’

I called the company, and with difficulty convinced the sales lady that a) I did not need nor want a push-up bra, and b) I did need to speak to English customer care. She finally obliged, but insisted I tell my wife about the fantastic bras.

‘This is Steven Young, how can I help you?’

He sounded small, sounded like a little fish in a big corporate Jacuzzi. He likely made less money than burger flippers back home; it was just before 5AM, and he could still find the energy to sound jolly on the phone. This wasn’t the face I needed to punch.

‘Steven, your automated marketing machine is calling me continuously. I don’t need to point out that telemarketing at this hour is insane, let alone telemarketing to a sleepy, angry Arab. Please make it stop.’

‘This late? That’s impossible – we only use the television channels at night!’

Oh push me you pond-shrimp; please push me.

‘Steven, I’m either a liar who likes wasting your time, or I have a problem. Pick one.’

‘I’m very sorry sir; I will find someone from IT immediately. Please take my personal number, the next shift takes my station at 5, but you’ll be able to reach me on my phone in case the calls don’t stop.’

I gave the phone ten minutes to stop ringing, and it took about half of that. I dragged myself to my bed and punched the lights, crashed into the pillow and shut my eyes.

Fuck that, I was still angry.

‘Hello Steven, this is Karl; I called you regarding the telemarketing problem.’

‘Yes mister Kaal, it isn’t resolved?’

‘It’s resolved, but I was hoping you could give me the number for your IT manager.’

‘The guys who fixed your line?’

‘The guy in charge.’

‘I don’t understand, if it’s fixed why do you need him?’

‘Steven, someday I’ll be in a great mood, call you and thank you for tonight, then probably buy you a drink. Today I am not in a great mood, and I need to be angry at someone. Please give me the number I need.’

He thought about this, no doubt weighing the benefits of angry foreign enemies against angry foreign friends.

‘Please don’t tell anyone I gave it to you.’

Here's Johnny!

Angry phone calls are an art. The amateur will start screaming the moment his line is picked up, and escalate the conversation quickly. This does not help; it merely triggers instinctive defenses and gets you hung up on before you’ve had a chance to convey your sentiments. That scenario would be unacceptable.

“My girls, sir, they didn’t care for the Overlook at first. One of them actually stole a pack of matches, and tried to burn it down. But I corrected them sir. And when my wife tried to prevent me from doing my duty, I corrected her.”

Yes, my insanity takes cues from Hollywood.

‘Ni hao?’

‘Jung Hong Shi?’

‘Yes?’

‘You speak English?’

‘Yes?’

‘Pity. Do you speak Arabic?’

‘No. Who is this?’

I let loose in my mother tongue, slowly climbing in both severity and volume. He tried to reason with me – calmly at first – in several languages. It took me about five minutes to frustrate him into hanging up.

I had assaulted him in a foreign language at a late hour for no good reason. I had awoken him, altered his disposition and left him feeling confused and angry.

This was insufficient; I called again.

‘Who is this?’

‘Jung Hong Shi?’

‘Who are you?! What do you want?!’

‘Do you speak English?’

‘I told you I speak English! What do you want?!’

‘Pity.’

This time I got creative, throwing in some French curses for that European stink, and even a few meaningless words that merely sounded threatening. I only got about two minutes before he hung up.

I had added insanity through repetition, added to his confusion and now instilled fear. This was good.

And insufficient.

He didn’t take my third call, and I was glad. My anger had almost dissipated and it was all that kept me awake. My third and fourth calls were rejected as well; but they were only meant for impact.

Excellent.

I gave it about ten minutes then used Skype. Sure he’d suspect foul play, but could you risk rejecting a call from an international number because of a late-night prankster? The sun was almost up anyway, this could be a legitimate business call. Idiot.

‘Wei ni hao?’

There was hesitation in his voice. There was hope, prayer and fear in that ni hao.

I gave it a full five seconds for effect.

‘Jung Hong Shi?’ I said, slowly.

‘What do you want?! What do you want?! What do you want?!’

‘Do you speak English?’

‘What do you want?! What do you want?! What do you want?!’ He was screaming; he was hysterical. He needed a moment.

‘I want the number I originally called you from removed from your company’s database permanently. The last half hour on the phone with you was a labor of love, I promise, and if I ever receive an ad from your company again, I will be very creative in my response. Are we clear?’

He froze, and I waited until the pieces of his world fell back into place.

‘You did all this for an advertisement?’

‘No, I did this for non-stop advertisements at 4AM, when I’d barely had two hours of sleep and have a meeting to look forward to early tomorrow morning. I did this because while I can’t scream at software, I can certainly scream at whoever’s taking care of it. Now are we clear?’

There! There it was, I’d hardly felt it creep up on me but the vile, poisonous blunt force of my anger came out in that very last sentence. I was foaming, I was drooling.

It was glorious.

He was relieved. My capacity for rational anger meant that I wasn’t an undead ghoul out to eat his eyes, I suppose, and now there was an actual issue to deal with. This composed him.

‘I will make sure it is removed. Please accept my apologies, and I hope it will not affect your opinion of the company.’

‘That’s fine; I don’t need push-up bras anyway.’

‘Oh no no, we sell so much more than…’

‘Don’t you fucking dare, Jung Hong Shi.’

“Wendy? Darling? Light, of my life. I’m not gonna hurt ya. You didn’t let me finish my sentence. I said, I’m not gonna hurt ya. I’m just going to bash your brains in.”