i_was_a_teenage_telemarketer raze i always reflexively open the door when i see someone standing on the front porch with a clipboard or a pamphlet, knowing they only want to try and push some pointless product on me or sell me a service i have no use for. windows. lawn_care. ornate bibles. glow-in-the-dark dentures. maybe i'm compelled to let them speak because i once sat in an unforgiving chair with a headset digging hollows into my hair and absorbed thousands of hours of faceless hate while trying to talk strangers into booking an appointment with a salesperson who would then bully them into buying an adjustible bed they didn't need. i know the strange and placid loneliness of sleepwalking through a mindless job no one else wants. today i looked through the peephole to find a man waiting for an unwilling victim, and for the first time in my life i chose to turn and walk away without hearing a word of what he had to say. there was inexplicable grief sewn up in the gesture, but there was something else there too. something that felt a little like letting_go. 250809 what's it to you? who go blather from