The Telephone Is Ringing, Is That The Other On The Phone?

My sister had a boyfriend in her youngest of days, whose mother was a counselor. Her boyfriend’s mother owned many rental homes, and my sister and her boyfriend lived in one of them. My last year in high school I was revving up my “truth seeking” thought processes, the way a teenager tends to, and I got involved in Jung, Joseph Campbell, and the poetry of T.S Elliot, among other things. I also got involved in some pretty heady conversations with my sister’s boyfriend’s Mom, and the next thing you know, I was a volunteer at her phone crises hotline.

I must say, I felt far too young to be holding the hot phone, but my reasonable nature and my willingness to simply listen to people served me well in that endeavor.

Most calls were simply lonely people needing someone to talk to, and I talked to invalids and shut-ins in ten minute blocks, always careful to write their names on a piece of paper in front of me and anything pertinent I felt they’d be upset if I didn’t recollect. Favorite TV shows and the like, mostly. Names of pets and what type they were.


I did a four hour block one night a week, and did my homework while I tapped a pencil atop a cheap table and nodded my head and mmm hmm’d my way through lonely talk after lonely talk.

Thankfully, I only handled two seeming “crises”, and one ended badly, in the sense that the girl hung up on me before I could get any information at all.

“555-Help.”

“OH MY GOD! He’s on his way over. I think he wants TO KILL ME!”

“Ma’am. Who is? Can you tell me what’s happening?”

“HE’S COMING TO GET ME. He’s pissed. He’s on his way over right now.”

“Ma’am, can you tell me where you are?”

“Oh shit! That’s him!” Click………………..

That’s a really silent moment, folks, when you hear that click. The call sounded extremely genuine and fraught, and I am still wondering what happened to the voice that called for help.

The other time was a girl who talked a great suicide but probably was just testing the reactions of others with her “I want to die” lament. She got referred to counseling and that is all I know about that.

When I was being trained, several chronic callers were mentioned and one in particular stands out in my memory.

The Big Wiener Guy.

He was a mischievous and odd guy that liked to call in with various disguised voices. He was a worried mother, a proud father, a sad and lonely boy, a girl in love with a young man with a serious problem. And you can’t make this stuff up, either. This guy was a for real weirdo who had a thing for stretching the truth a bit. His game was to see how far he could pull in one of the volunteers. His game was to create concern by walking the edge of absurdity. His thing was an ever evolving and reconstructed tale about a very large penis.

I’m dead serious here.

He would call in and pretend to be a young man in turmoil because his penis was too big for any girl. He scared them off, he said. They were afraid of being hurt. The only sex he could have was by himself… yaddy yaddy yaddy. This one went over well for a bit. Apparently, some of the women who answered these calls tried to talk him out of his concerns, and these conversations ended with statistics about stretch and intake and the size of a baby's head and all of that. The guy must have really enjoyed this.

He would call in and claim he was the mother of a teen-aged boy who had a very large penis, trying to demonstrate just how concerned he/she was about her poor boys' future prospects.

This was the one that got him outed. One of the women who HAD kids knew right off his scenario was false. I mean, what mother waits thirteen years to discover her son is hung?

The proud father scenario flew OK until the outing, and then the phone calls diminished and came very seldom. But they still came.

So while being trained, we were warned about this guy and told of the shut-ins and the invalids and the likely calls we were going to receive. I took all this in and then did about ten weeks of manning the phones before a twenty something girl signed on, and joined me at the phones. The one thing I truly remember about this girl was that she earestly wanted to help people. Even the Big Weiner Guy.

Apparently, she didn’t get the memo.

Apparently, I wasn’t about to tell her, either.

“I’m sorry, he has what?”

“You think that’s a problem?”

“That IS big.”

“Well, no. I’ve never felt like that before.”

“Wow.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No, it’s not your fault. You can only tolerate so much pain. I mean, you aren’t made of rubber.”

“Yeah. I’ve done that.”

“Well, yeah, but you can control how much you take in by making him lie flat. Don’t let him get his hands around your ass.”

“Sure, I’ve… Wow? You can’t get your mouth around it AT ALL?”

“Yeah, I can see the problem there.”

“Tell him he’s gotta go easy or you’re gonna split in two.”

“No, I don’t think he can have reduction surgery. But I’m not sure.”

“It just seems like there is too much going on down there. Yeah, nerves and blood vessels and stuff.”

“No, I don’t know of any guy who would willingly go through that.”

“Maybe there are some stretching exercises you can do?”

“Me? On top. Yeah. Or from behind.”

“I’m not gonna say.”

“Look, I just started here. I don’t know everything.”

“I would just talk to the guy. Tell him that it hurts, and that he has to be careful.”

“Yeah, I know how they get. Mine gets himself going like a dog. Yeah. A dog. Yeah, ever see a dog humping air? Like that (laughs). No. He’s just normal.”

“No, I’m not supposed to meet anyone I talk to on the phone. No. I can’t”

At this point I stopped hiding my beet-red face and gave the cut off signal and tried to show an air of concern through the tears of laughter I was fighting back.

The Big Wiener Guy had struck again.




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