If My Nervous System Ran a Customer Service Line

Thank you for contacting your body. Your call is important to us. Please continue holding, and holding, and holding.

I called my nervous system this morning to report a problem. I am still on the line. Let me walk you through how it went, in case you are thinking of reaching out to yours.

The hold music started immediately. It is not soothing. It is a low staticky hum with the occasional electrical pop, the kind of sound that makes you check whether something is on fire. I have been listening to it for years. I know every note. It does not loop so much as never quite resolve.

After a while a representative picked up, though "picked up" is generous. They could not find my account. They asked me to verify my identity and then did not recognize any of my answers, including the part where I explained that I am the account, calling about the account, from inside the account. They placed me back on hold to "look into that."

I tried to report the original issue. The fatigue, I said. The fog. The hip. The representative listened, or seemed to, and then informed me there was actually a fire drill happening in the building right now, scheduled by no one, and they would have to get back to me. I asked when. They said they could not provide a timeline at this time. They never can.

At one point I was transferred. I do not know to which department. The new hold music was the same hold music. I suspect I was transferred to the same person, who pretended not to be the same person, which is somehow exactly how it feels in real life.

Hours in, the representative returned to ask, brightly, "Have I resolved your issue today?" Nothing had been resolved. Nothing is ever resolved. There is no manager. I have asked for the manager many times, and I have come to understand that the manager does not exist, or if it does, it is also on hold somewhere, holding for the same line, getting the same music.

Eventually the call ends the way it always ends. Not with a solution. Just with me hanging up, tired, no closer to reaching anyone in charge, because there is no one in charge, only the line, only the hum, only the promise that my call is important to us. Please hold. We'll be right with you. We will not be right with you.