Call of the Day

Kat, our receptionist at Rocky Mountain Institute, has lots of funny tales of phone calls she receives. Most of the callers are old men who have nothing better to do all day, so they ring us up wanting to "chat with" Amory Lovins, our Chief Scientist and co-founder, who charges something like $20K per speaking event (I know -- who the hell does he think he is, Nancy Pelosi or some shit like that?)

Needless to say, Kat must divert these calls to other people besides Amory, because he is a terribly busy man what with being brilliant and tending to his banana plants and talking to monkeys and all. Really. I have BEEN TO HIS HOUSE and he has banana plants in an arboretum in the main hall and stuffed monkeys everywhere. He talks to bonobos in zoos. TALKS to them. As in, the keepers just let him go into the cages and have tea and scones with Binky and Mfufu, and they chat up about things like current politics of the jungle and how unfair it is that monkeys can't throw poo at zoo visitors without serious repercussions.

Anyway, back to the phone calls...the best is when the caller says something like, "Uhh, yeah, um, I knew Armory [real name = AMORY] way back when, and I was just, um, wondering if he'd talk with me for just a minute about..." segueway into 5-minute detailed old man nothingness. This I know to be true, as I sit in for Kat at the front desk on a revolving basis, and yesterday I had a call during which, for SEVEN MINUTES, this old coot rambled on nonstop and I COULD NOT interrupt without hanging up on him. Fucker. So here is a good one from this morning, which Kat emailed to me after she stopped rolling convulsively on the office floor:

Kat: "Good morning, Rocky Mountain Institute"
Caller: "Hi, Can I talk to Ebony Lubbins?" [note, again: AMORY LOVINS]
Kat: "May I ask who's calling?"
Caller: "The next Pulitzer Prize winner. I woke up this morning and had the energy crisis answer!!"
Kat: "Wow, sounds like a busy morning."
Caller: "Indeed, I think I might explode!"