We have a couple of floor walkers at the shop. Floor walkers, for those of you not in the know, are sort of the P.R. arm of a tattoo shop. They guide the customers around to specific designs, they answer the easy questions and handle the phones so the rest of us can tend to the bloodletting. They're a valuable asset to have in a busy shop so the artists can spend more time actually tattooing (or sleeping or reading or downloading porn). So, one of our floorwalkers is a rather excitable fella, he gets a little worked up over stuff and often his reaction to things is funnier than the actual situation. He gets a hard time from us on account of that, which is a little mean, but tattoo shops are kind of like a frat house. There is a lot of ball-busting and pranking going on, and if you want to be in the club, you had best be able to suck it up. But I'll get back to him in a minute.
We often recieve calls from deaf people who have questions about tattooing and piercing. The deaf can communicate by telephone using a TTY device, which is basically a keypad where they type in their questions. The call goes to an operator, who calls the intended destination and relays the questions by voice. The call-ee answers the questions, and the operator types the answers into his or her device, and the deaf caller gets their answers on their display.
So, last night, a busy Saturday, such a call came in and our easily-irked floorwalker happened to pick up. The burning questions were in regards to a Prince Albert piercing, we all know what that is by now. If you don't, it's one of the many types of penis piercings, you dope. Anyway, I've been designated, as my co-workers call me, the "cockmaster", as I have no qualms about such work. I am a scavenger, and if I get paid to do it, I will, creepy or not. It's a day at the office to me. So, as I was in the middle of a tattoo, the floor walker didn't wish to disturb me with a phone call, and he tried to handle the call himself. I knew nothing about it until he appeared at my door afterwards, flushed and agitated to recount the story.
"So, he starts asking me about it," the floorwalker told me. "He was asking what piercings I had and what I looked like, and how would he find me," he explained, the ruddiness in his face deepening. "And I told him he'd have to talk to you, and then he was asking if you were hot."
I started to laugh, as he pressed on, growing more and more agitiated. "And he was saying, no, he wanted to talk to me about it, and then he wanted to know if he could see my piercings, and if I was hot, and I said, 'You know what? This call is over.' And then I hung up on him."
I began to disinfect my counter as he stood in my doorway, shaking his head. "I just got prank-called by a deaf guy. That's how fucked up my life is." I completely lost it at that moment. I've gotten a lot of prank calls of many natures at work, but I can honestly say, none of them ever involved the time and effort of a TTY relay call. Now, that's impressive. That's proof positive how hard the disabled will work to overcome the obstacles and challenges put in their way to do the things we all take for granted...like prank-calling.
