Cable Package Downgrade Phone Call

There is a specific kind of calm you reach somewhere around minute nineteen of a cable company hold queue. Not acceptance — something past that. A state where the trumpet loop that has been repeating since 3:47 PM starts to feel like it belongs to you personally, like it was composed specifically for this moment in your life when you just wanted to downgrade to the Basic TV package.

This track lives in that moment. Rhodes piano carries the whole thing at a slow, unhurried pace, sitting over a drum loop so relaxed it seems unbothered by the entire situation. The vinyl crackle runs underneath from start to finish — the sound of something that has been playing a long time and will keep playing. A female voice surfaces periodically with lines that are less lyrics than they are hold-queue transcripts: press one for English / press two if you've already pressed one. Delivered without inflection. Which is the only appropriate delivery.

The bridge documents the resolution. The call lasted forty-one minutes. She was very sorry for the long wait. The new monthly rate is five dollars higher than the one you called to cancel. You said okay. The confirmation email arrived at 4:28 PM with the subject line: Welcome to your new plan.

Bureaucratic Dread Records. For the ones still on hold.