Free Sample

The morning was going about as well as any Monday morning went for Ernie except it wasn’t Monday, it was Tuesday. When his alarm went off, he hit the snooze, except he didn’t, he turned his alarm off completely. If it wasn’t for his roommate, Chris, slamming his bedroom door, he wouldn’t have woken up on time.

Ernie saw the clock read fifteen out, and thought one word: “Shit!’ He jumped up, got dressed, ran into the living room, and quickly noticed there wasn’t a coffee mug anywhere. Chris had actually loaded the dishwasher, a miracle. Chris was working graveyards this month, so slamming doors were the norm, not loading the dishwasher. Ernie didn’t have time to wait, and didn’t feel like grabbing one out of the running machine, so he grabbed leftovers for lunch and took off for work. He’d find a cup of joe at work.

He bolted out of his place, skipped the elevator for the stairs, and ran outside like the building was on fire. He noticed EMS checking some hobo on the street, and he heard more sirens than usual. Rushing to the station, he realized he had missed his train, but luckily, caught the next one.

His phone was out of minutes, so he couldn’t call his boss for an excuse for being late. He wouldn’t be that late if he ran - skipping coffee, Sportscenter highlights, and even brushing his teeth had him on pace to make it to work about on time. As the train pulled away from the station, he noticed another hobo on the ground, a clean-cut guy, sleeping on the floor of the station. Then he saw a woman faint right as the train entered the tunnel. He looked around, but nobody else had seen it. Then a black man on the subway car fainted, falling like a sack of potatoes.

“Stand back, give us some air, I am a doctor!“ a man yelled. Ernie wasn’t going to get involved, he was almost at his stop.

When his train finally arrived, he quickly maneuvered towards the door and noticed an orange-haired man trying to rush on before letting people off. His eyes were white - right when the doors opened, he fell into Ernie.

“Back off! Ernie yelled, and the man fell onto the subway car. The whole city was falling like drunks on ice skates. Ernie breezed up on the stairs and hightailed his way to his work building. When he saw his co-worker, Annie, he knew he was back on schedule. Annie was an older lady who had been hired about the same time as him at the Recall Call Center.

“Good morning!” he said, holding the door for her.

She nodded at him, holding a cup of coffee as if to torture to him. They made their way to the elevator. Once inside, Ernie could smell the hot java. He needed a cup badly. She took a sip staring at him, and asked, “Ready to work hard or hardly work?”

“Another day, another dollar,” Ernie told her, smiling as the elevator chimed the arrival on the fourth floor.

“I am just happy I made it on time; two people collapsed in front of me on the way to work,” Annie said as they walked off the lift.

“Really, two people, huh? I saw -” Ernie stopped talking as he noticed a team meeting disbursing. They were five minutes late and had missed it.

“If it’s that serious, I am going to need to call my family, I will be back!” a new worker said getting onto the elevator.

“Ernie, Annie, we got a new script. Here take this, urgent recalls, read it over, and start doing calls.” Mitch, the head manager on duty, said. Ernie took the sheet, grateful for not getting written up for being late.

“Sure thing boss, what is it, another toxic bubblegum?” Ernie said while pouring himself a large cup of coffee..

“Just read the script, and get to work!” Mitch said.

Ernie made his way to an open cubicle, slid on a headset, and sat down. He dialed out the first number and didn’t see a script pop up on his screen.

“Where is the script?”

“It’s in your hand,” Annie reminded him.

Ernie nodded at her and hit his coffee. His brain wasn’t working yet. His headset was ringing now, and after three rings, a man picked up.

“Hello.”

“Hello, my name is Ernie Banks with the National Recall Call Center -”

“Ernie Banks, like the baseball player?”

“I am Ernie Banks, but I am not Mr. Cub.” Ernie informed him. It wasn’t an unusual comment from callers. He glanced at the screen, and saw this was a phone call to a Mr. Miller in Buffalo. He jumped to the script on the sheet.

“Mr. Miller, it has come to our attention that a product you might have recently received is causing massive deaths across the country. This is a product that once used has no antidote, and will likely result in death within 12 hours. This product was a dishwasher detergent sent as a free sample in the mail. It will be in a blue and silver package, six by four inches, which has a logo on the top that looks like a ship on a horizon, reading, Purely Clean.”

“It’s causing massive deaths?”

“Yes sir, so we are asking anyone who might have received this product to not use it. It needs to be recalled.” Ernie burnt his mouth on a swig of coffee.

“Don’t use the soap causing massive deaths, yeah, no shit!” The man said hanging up.

Ernie smiled and spun in his chair. One down, 199 more to go to hit his quota for lunch. He hit his coffee again. His headset dialed out to a household in Indiana.

A woman answered, and Ernie read through the first half of the script.

“That’s terrifying - so how many of these were sent out?”

“Well,” Ernie glanced at his screen to read who he was talking with, “Misses - Martin, uh, over thirteen million went out on Friday and Saturday all across the country.” Ernie read off the sheet.

“Thirteen million? Jesus Chrysler!.”

“Yes, ma’am, we are asking that anyone who - “

“I do the dishes here, and we didn’t get any free soap, thanks for letting me know.”

She hung up. Two down, 198 to go.

Ernie clicked and dialed out the next number. His computer screen read another New York state address with the name Mr. Belcher.

“Hello,” a man answered.

“Mr. Belcher, hi, I am Ernie with the national recall call center, and I am calling today because -”

“Not interested!” The man said and hung up. 3 down. Today was going to move like a payday.

Ernie prompted his computer for the next number, and the screen read Mr. And Mrs. Duane Simmons. A woman answered.

“Yes, hello.”

“Hello, ma’am, Mrs. Simmons -”

“Yes..”

“I am with the National Recall Call Center. It has come to our attention that a product you might have recently used is causing massive deaths across the country. This product is a dishwasher detergent that might have come to you in the mail as a free -”

“Oh, we had a blue and silver one come with a ship on it, but I threw it into the trash. If it’s not organic, it has chemicals and causes cancer.”

“Well, it appears that might be true as this one is causing…” Ernie paused to read the side effects again before adding, “massive death, fuck!’

“Excuse you, sir?”

“F-f-f-fire, the place is on fire!” Ernie said, trying to cover up an f-bomb that might be recorded before hanging up.

“Jesus, is this shit real?” Ernie looked at Annie.

“It’s on the news, that is, a terrorist attack, but not enough people are watching. The Faux ran a story saying it’s fake, so it’s turned into one of those.” Annie informed him.

“I liked it better when we called about brakes going out.”

“Yeah, they got cops going door to door in Harlem, and I heard Brooklyn,” Annie informed him.

“Holy shit, I gotta call my mom shit, that means it could be at my place!” Ernie stood up.

“Yeah did you not see people falling like flies on your w-” Annie stopped talking as Ernie took off his headset and started to leave.

Ernie stopped by the door and texted his mom: “Don’t do the dishes, turn on the news, death, bad, very bad, call you soon!”

He ran to the station, gasping for air as he bounced down the steps and got onboard, but not before noticing two people asleep or dead on the station floor. He arrived at his stop and ran up the stairs as an ambulance flew by him. More people were dead on the street. He was too tired to not take the elevator up and struggled to get inside his place.

“Yikes, you scared me, man, you burst in like Kramer!” Luke cried.

Ernie turned to look at the dishwasher; it was open. Then he noticed on the top of the trash, a blue labelled package. Chris had used it on the dishes. He turned to Luke, who was holding a coffee mug.

“You didn’t get that mug from in here, did you?” Ernie asked Luke.

“Yeah, can you believe Chris actually ran the dishwasher?”

“Did you drink it all?”

Chris titled it to show it was empty, walked by Ernie, and said, “Yeah, it tasted like crap though. I gotta run, I gotta go get ready for work.” He headed into his bedroom and slammed the door shut.

Ernie pulled the script from his pocket and read it again: After use, the poison will cause heart failure within 12 hours. Nothing can be done. The person will die!

He crumpled the paper and heard a loud thump in Luke’s room.