Rerun: Customer Service
Written for repo_woman for the drabble meme. Prompt: Movie Theme.
"...for English, press one, para Español-"
beep
"We are experiencing longer than normal call volume. The average hold time is.... SEVENTEEN... minutes. Your call is important to us, and will be answered in the order it was received."
"Goddammit" Jack held the cordless land line phone away from him and wrinkled his face at it in disgust. He knew that it wasn't the phone's fault, but there had to be a holiday season scapegoat and he would rather not yell at a person who was just trying to do their job. He returned the phone to it's holster and pressed the speakerphone button, allowing himself to bustle around the kitchen finishing dinner preparations before Juliet returned home with Aaron. Earlier in the day he had bought a blu ray player and Up on dvd as an early Christmas present for the family, but was experiencing technical difficulties. He had hoped to have a night of dinner and a movie to celebrate, but at the moment neither seemed to be progressing very quickly.
As he peeked into the oven window to check on the meatballs, the Muzak clicked on with a blaring, and in his opinion, very annoying, refrain: Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!
Roma-roma-mamaa!
Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!
Want your... something or other. He didn't understand what the woman was trying to tell him through the speaker.
"What the hell kind of song is this?" he muttered as he checked on the marinara sauce, adding a bit of oregano before checking on the water for the noodles. Still not boiling.
You know that I want you
('Cause I'm a freak bitch baby!)
"That's nice." He found himself answering the song. Was there really going to be seventeen minutes of this? Jack wasn't sure he could handle it.
Through the noise of the song he heard a door click open and Jack scrambled to the living room to attempt to hide the box, cardboard bits, bubble wrap, instruction manual, and movie. He quickly shoved them all into the drawers underneath the entertainment center and ran back to greet Juliet and Aaron. "Hi!" he greeted, in a much more chipper manner than usual, beaming widely.
Juliet smiled, shaking her head and quickly gave him one of her patented eyebrow quirks while Aaron let go of her hand and wandered toward the strange sounds coming from the phone. "What are you up to, Jack?"
"Nothing."
"You've always been a terrible liar." He answered him directly, but not without losing her gentle humor. She then moved toward the television, in slow, deliberate steps. "It wouldn't have anything to do with this, would it?" Juliet asked, pointing at the blu ray player with a point of the toe. In his haste, Jack had put away everything but the main component.
"It was going to be a surprise early Christmas present." Jack began to explain before he felt a tugging on his pant leg coming from his nephew. "Yes, Aaron?"
"What does a 'poker face' mean?"
Jack winced and gave an apologetic shrug to no one in particular. "Uh... surprise?"