Minuard Foundation 3: The Phone Calls Begin

I was awakened by the phone ringing in the next room. I looked at the clock. 3am. Time to make the doughnuts. Shit. But it was the phone call I'd been looking for-the first one.

"Minuard Foundation, how may I direct your call?"

Female laughter in the background, then "is this Minuard?"

"No ma'am," I replied, "I'm Minuard's caseworker-on-duty, though, so I can probably help. Are you interested in adopting him?"

"Is this the cute guy with the blonde hair?"

(I confess to a twitch of a smile there--hey, it was 3am)

"Yes ma'am, are you one of the ladies I spoke to this evening?"

Giggling.

"Well, we want you to come over."

"I'd be more than happy to set up an appointment with you to look at the household you'd provide for little Minuard, but at this time I'm the only one manning the phone."

(notice the subtle insinuation of my own virility--smart, huh?)

More giggling. Whispering. How OLD were these girls?

A different voice:

"Hi, this is Cindy. We'd love for you to come over and inspect our...facilities...when can you come over?"

"Well, ma'am, I don't have my calendar in front of me at the moment. Would you mind leaving me your number so I can return your call another time? Tomorrow?"

Whispers.

"We'll call you back tomorrow, sweetie."


Hell yeah. Score one for the Foundation.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang again. "Minuard Foundation!"

A man's voice, lisping: "Hi, listen, we don't really want to adopt Minuard, so much. But can we talk to you about renting him? Like, an hourly rate?"

"I'm sorry, sir, we're doing our best to find Minuard a stable, loving home. I don't think what you're suggesting would be amenable to him. However, I'll do some asking around, and see if there are any of our other clients who might be able to help you."

Raucous laughter. A whiff of Judy Garland, and they were gone. I went back to bed.


The next evening, I had a message on my machine:

"Hey, man, this is Alex, and we really dig your flyer. We want to meet the Minuard, man. Call us."

Between 2 and 3 am, my phone rang twice. Both strippers (or groups of strippers) who wanted to either meet me or the Minuard. I flirted for a bit, always maintaining the caseworker persona, but found I was always able to end the conversation by asking for a phone number. This was kind of fun.

By the next weekend I had taken about 15 calls, and was about to pass out from lack of sleep. We hit the strip bars again Friday night, hoping to find some of the girls I'd been talking to on the phone during the week. We did--but they were on the way out the door to go to Dallas. A really cute girl with dark eyes and black hair asked for one for her friend. I gave her 20 or so, then headed into the mix for more converts.

Later, we drove through the Paseo, past a drum circle full of hippies. Bob got out to dose them. I fell asleep to the sound of beating drums and a stuck lifter in his motor.