When people get old and everyone around them has died, and even the ghosts stop coming around to haunt them, they get lonely, and they talk to the mailman or the gas meter reader or the guy at the meat counter.
Or 911.
“What’s your emergency?”
“Everyone I know is dead.”
If it’s not a busy day, the operator talks to them.
And if it is, they take down their number, call them back.
Some say they drank something. Others burn things in the kitchen.
So we hire them to take calls.
The hard part is keeping the conversations brief.