Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Call Story

Maven Erica RidleySo, I was sitting at a tall table in a tiny internet cafe in Arenal, Costa Rica watching a cow cross the road, when Gmail was so kind as to drop an email from my agent, Lauren Abramo, into my Inbox.

[begin complete and utter paraphrase with shameless abuse of poetic license]

ERiCA!!!

I left you messages on all forty-eight of your phones and yet I haven't heard from you. What could possibly be more important than the super-exciting thing I'm killing myself trying to tell you?? Call me before I shank you!

Love, Lauren


[end complete and utter paraphrase with shameless abuse of poetic license]

Hmmm, I thought to myself. I *could* continue to drowsily stare at the cow crossing the road. Or... I could call my agent.

Seeing as how AT&T charges $2.29 per minute for international calls from Costa Rica [$?#*@!] I fired up my good buddy Skype on my laptop and placed me an international call faster than you can say "VOIP".

[begin complete and utter paraphrase with shameless abuse of poetic license]

L: Hello?

E: Hey, Lauren, it's Erica.

L: Hey, Erica! Long time no talk. What've you been up to?

E: Oh, you know. Ate some beans and rice. Drank an Imperial. Watched a cow cross the road. You?

L: Oh, you know. Crossed tall buildings in a single bound. Shot spiderwebs out of my wrists. Sold your book.

E: SQUEEE!!!!!

L: SQUEEE!!!!!

E & L: SQUEEE!!!!!

[end complete and utter paraphrase with shameless abuse of poetic license]

There you have it--my two-missed-calls-one-email-one-cow-and-an-emergency-voip-chat call story.

Squeee!!!!!

Special thanks to my uber-massive support group: the Mavens Darcy, Lacey, Carrie, and Jackie, Kel & Manda, Janice, PCubed: Jean, June, Elissa, Cheryl, and Linda, all my TARA sisters, Cheryl, Julie and Virginia for never being too busy to answer my questions, and of course Karen and Diana, whose (utterly perfect) initial reaction was, "I told you so!"

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Jumping on the bandwagon of jubilation! Congrats...and enjoy your success (and that cow).

Bill Clark said...

So...why was the cow crossing the road? Enquiring minds want to know!

By the way, it is SO great to have the MM site back up and running again. And especially with such great news! You guys rock!!

Marnee Bailey said...

LOL! Hilarious!

Congratulations again. :)

lacey kaye said...

Some people actually post real conversations in their call stories. You crack me up.

Jackie Barbosa said...

Only Erica could have a call story including cows, references to both Superman and Spiderman, AND the word "shank."

Congrats again! I can't wait to buy my very own paperback copy of TOUCHED, which I'm sure I will dog-ear to death and which will definitely remain forever on my keeper shelf.

Elyssa Papa said...

Love this call story! Congrats again!

Delilah Marvelle said...

This is the best call story ever!!! Setting aisde shameless abuse of poetic license.... LOL. Congrats!

Kelly Krysten said...

Oh, that's the cutest call story ever! Congrats!!

Anonymous said...

No wonder you sold -- you're a storyteller!

Congratulations, Erica, and well done.

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