Where's My Chronic?!

One of the sad facts of life is: that many people out “there” in life are sad, depressed and desperately lonely. These folks live in their small rent controlled or subsidized apartment wishing any kind of social contact. Lucky for them and sad for me and other operators like me there are information lines or support lines of one sort or another. In my day I have worked hotlines, suicide lines and now this State information and referral line and there has been one constant: if you offer a free line they will call. These folks are what I call the “chronics” People who seem to have nothing better to day but to call you (me) on the phone and talk and talk and talk.

I currently have two or there callers whom I would refer to as chronic, actually only one, who is truly chronic and by chronic I mean someone who calls everyday. The other couple of chronics call maybe once or twice a month and they can take an hour or more but once they have talked their talk you can clear the lines and get back to work. But my daily chronic, lets call her Molly, calls nearly everyday and will talk as long as I will allow her ramble. This would not be so very bad if I were one of those folks who can multi-task—like being able to work on typing while fully engaged with Molly. I cannot do that, when I have tried to do that I just mess up the conversation and the caller knows they are not your focus of attention. So I eventually make the commitment to the call, trying to look at the clock on the wall and see my day drag by.

Molly is a lost, mal-nourished waif who maintains she can only subsist on a very specialized diet from high end health food stores. I personally think she is brilliant. Molly has a degree and is trying to make a business doing people’s genealogy but her business has not gone well. Molly is also trying to stay in a house the owner is trying to throw her out of. Poor Molly has no where to go. People do not understand her need for her specialized diet—Molly can be demanding for what she deems is right and fair. The owner of the home she is in promised at one time that she he would sell this place to her. There was never anything done formal and in writing. The property has greatly escalated in value over the time she has lived and now he wants to sell it and he wants Molly out. Mollys’s not going! She wavers between suicide and torching the property. It’s been two days since I last heard from her and I am beginning to worry about her.

Molly is focused, clearheaded little thinker—I don’t think she is crazy. I do think she is desperate, hurt and feels abandoned socially, ecclesiastically and emotionally. I hope and pray she survives her relocation because I doubt she will be in her house much longer. I’ll give her one more day and I do not hear from her by tomorrow afternoon I’ll have to call someone.