Big Brass Ones

I rarely answer the phone but I picked up the other day because Fuss was napping and I didn't know where the machine's volume was set.

It was a slick fellow from some house painting company that had given mom an estimate. When he asked if she was available (hah!) I took a page from the wife's book and said "No, she died last year. This is her son".

This only briefly threw him off script and moments later he was delivering a full-throated sales pitch, like a racehorse swiftly recapturing their form after some jostling out of the gate.

I listened in slack-jawed amazement.
Capitalism writ large, ladies and gentlemen.
He wasn't as objectively disgusting as the many predators that descended because she died, but for some reason I found his cheery obliviousness more depressing.