I Was a Failed Phone Sex Worker
and other mishaps I’ve made along the way
It was 2008. I was a kitchen designer and the construction industry had imploded. Lehman Brothers had collapsed and the rest of it went haywire.
At home, we were on the cusp of losing everything, so what else was there to lose?
“Tell me what you’re into,” I said, thinking it would be easy. I have a good voice and know how to purr on the phone.
And yes, I was a failed phone sex worker, but that is not what this essay is about.
What it’s about is making sense of the grief and craziness it’s impossible not to feel when the norms we take for granted are no longer sacrosanct.
Before this last election, there were rumblings from the experts to prepare ourselves. Those who bet money and know the odds, were ready to call it. But, not unlike the certainty we had before the Great Recession, one said to oneself that these things could never happen.
I mean, look at me! I was a kitchen designer. It was unthinkable to imagine myself auditioning to be a phone sex worker.
The Great Recession was 16 years ago, and we managed to get through it. But during that time, we nearly lost everything.
