Meet the Press

I work in a mall. Not at the Gap, but at a television news bureau located in a mall. A gig at the Gap would be pretty sweet, as their employees make substantially more money than a small-market journalist. But anyway, it’s like working inside an exhibit at the zoo. People walk up to the glass and stare at you. Some people even tap on the glass to see if you’ll move.

Every now and then, somebody gets bold enough to actually knock on the door. Usually, they want to join the Viewer’s Club. Being a member of the Viewer’s Club entitles you to… I’m not exactly sure. You get something, trust me. So people come in and sign up for this club and usually leave you alone after that. But every now and then, people sit down and strike up a conversation. This is one such incident.

Two people come into the bureau and fill out VC cards and head towards the door. One woman stops at the door and says, “I think we need to talk about something.” Her friend gets an odd look on her face and says, “I’ll meet you back at the car.” Not a good sign.

The woman sits down on my desk and begins talking about the poor condition of her home. You see, there’s the thing, it was built in the 1960s, and the cabinets are practically falling off the wall. The floors aren’t so good either. I look at her puzzled.

“Something needs to be done about this,” she says.

I tell her I don’t really know what I can do about it, so she continues.

“The real thing is the septic tank. It needs to be replaced. It’s just too old.”

She goes on and describes in detail the travails of using the plumbing in her home, especially the toilet. Then she looks at me as if to say, “So, what are you going to do about this?”

“I can’t install a septic tank for you,” I say. “I don’t know how, and I don’t have the time.”

She then suggests the station have some sort of telethon to raise money for the septic tank. When I tell her that we don’t really do that kind of thing, she keeps talking.

“Something has to be done about this, and people need to know. Maybe the president should hear about this.”

The president? As in the President of the United States of America?

Yes.

As an avid watcher of “All the President’s Men,” I have just the answer for her.

202-456-1414
I write the number down on a post-it note and hand it to her. I tell her it’s the president’s phone number in Washington, DC.

“He’s in Crawford a lot. Do you have his number there?”

“Just call the Washington number, and they’ll know what to do.”