Yoda For a Day

"Help you I can, yes, um," I told the caller.

"Excuse me?"

"Help you I can, yes, um."

"You're the person in charge of the long-distance account?"

"Person in charge of the long-distance account am I," I replied. "Service how can Yoda be of to you?"

I don't need to tell you that the telemarketing rep was a tad perplexed by my wacky lingo. But he soldiered on bravely, trying to get me to switch my long-distance telephone service to another carrier. I wasn't giving an inch.

"Size matters not," I reminded him. "Decide you must how to serve me best. Beware of the Dark Side and let the Force be with you."

Eventually, Mr. Long-Distance Phone Guy decided to bag this particular call. I felt triumphant. For years I'd been getting annoying calls from credit card companies, long-distance phone carriers, cultural institutions, Greenpeace, the New York State Democratic Party and my mom, and I had never been able to figure out how to get any of these people to stop badgering me. Now I had stumbled upon the solution. Talk like Yoda. It would drive them right up the fucking wall.

Armed with this insight, I now set out on a foray into the real world, hoping to use Yoda to avenge myself on everyone who had ever busted my balls. My first target was an organization called America Needs Fatima, which had sent me a series of dunning notices demanding that I immediately send a check for $10.77 for a book I had neither requested nor received. Clearly, someone had ordered the book for me as a prank. Things like this happened all the time, and I always ended up having to spend lots of time on the phone explaining that I was not the person who had ordered the product I was being badgered about. I'd already tried the kid gloves approach in this case. Now it was time to bring in the muscle. It was time for Yoda.

"Receive I dunning notice for book," I explained to the customer service representative at America Needs Fatima as soon as she picked up the phone.

"Excuse me, could you repeat that?" she asked.

"Receive I dunning notice for book," I said. "Not order book did I."

"I see," she said. "Could you let me have your last name?

I gave it to her.

"Could you let me have your address?" she asked.

I supplied that, too.

"OK, and you say you did not order the book?" she inquired.

"Not order book did I," I replied, with consummate Yodic panache. "Prank played on was you a."

"Oh, no," the woman interjected. "We don't play pranks."

"Good is that."

"We'll take care of this," she said.

"Thank you. And beware of the Dark Side."

"OK. Thank you, too."

Now that I had my game plan in place, I realized that Yoda was forevermore going to be a fixture of my everyday life. That afternoon, I grabbed a train to New York and immediately sought out one of those infuriating people who think that the whole world is their office, who honestly expect everyone else on the train--and indeed the planet--to sit by politely while they make their loud, idiotic cell phone calls. I didn't have much trouble finding one: a fortysomething type. As he blathered on and on about nothing in particular, I sat down beside him, pulled out my toy cell phone, and gave him the Full Yoda. "Nothing more will I teach you today," I muttered into the phone. "Away put your weapon."

I paused to make it seem as if someone was on the end of my call. Then I said, "I cannot teach him. The boy has no patience."

Another pause.

"Take you to him, I will."

Another pause.

"Will you finish what you begin?"

Another pause.

"Beware of the Dark Side."

Another pause.

"If you ever start down the Dark Side, it will destroy you." Now the guy was clearly eavesdropping.

"Use the Force."

Pause.

"Always with you what cannot be done."

Pause.

"Size matters not!"

The guy was staring at me.

"You must feel the Force all around you."

Finally, he got the idea. He put away his phone and left. And I put away mine. Mr. Yuppie had met Mr. Yoda, and Mr. Yoda had cleaned his clock. And he will go on cleaning such clocks. Oh yes, for the rest of my life, whenever I am backed into a corner by generic assholes armed with cell phones, or by irksome peddlers, aggressive bill collectors, relentless telephone solicitors, determined door-to-door salesmen, cold-calling brokers or cash-strapped relatives, I will know exactly how to deal with them. As Yoda once told Luke Skywalker, you must learn to use the Force.

Believe you, know how I to use it, um, yes.

________________________________________

Joe Queenan wrote about serial killer movies for the March 99 issue of Movieline.

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