I talked on the phone today with Rosie O’Donnell, who’d* you talk to?

I’ve posted this picture before and I plan to post it again whenever there is even a remote reason to do so. By the way, don't you think that guy with Ro and me should have his own morning show?

*Wrong.

Between 10 and 12 this morning, when you guys were busy with your silly little paying jobs I was on hold with Rosie Radio, Rosie O’Donnell’s new Sirius/XM radio program. (Not the whole time...but most of it.) The show doesn’t actually launch until Monday but I read on Rosie’s blog that she was doing a trial run today as she’s been doing for the last couple of weeks. So I called the number, got the busy signal and since I was just sitting at my desk doing research (dawdling around my favorite blogs) I decided to keep trying with the phone on my shoulder as I occupied myself otherwise.

Busy. Busy. Busy. Ring. I nearly hung up on the ringing out of habit.

A chipper young male voice answered the phone, “Rosie Radio! Who’s calling?”

After identifying myself (first and last name like they were going to run my credit report), the guy said that Rosie and friends (childhood pal “Weanie” and Ro’s longtime producer Janette Barber) were talking about going to the doctor and those hospital gowns with the opening in the back and also what they do to combat depression on rainy days. Did I have anything to say on those subjects?

Panic. I rambled at first---something about my hoo-hoo nurse practitioner and then mentioned that I’m one of those people who gets depressed on sunny days more than rainy ones (and also during long winters, the day before my period and high school). The screener seemed interested in my sunny day depression (it’s true---something about the pressure of a nice day and a feeling of being dried out gets me down) and asked me to hold and then he’d have me join the conversation. I was on hold for like three minutes before the happy call screener came back to tell me that they’d no longer be talking about rainy days but thanks for calling.

I returned his thank you with a (phony) chipper thank you of my own and hung up…nearly defeated.

Then I started calling again. There’s more to me than rainy days! There had to be something else they were talking about. Plus, I was sure there was more than one call screener so I knew if I just talked to someone else then that person would surely realize that not only did I have something to add to whatever conversation they were having but that they might want to invite me into the studio as a Rosie’s sidekick (or writer.) I got the busy signal a billion more times and then, much to my surprise, the same chipper young male voice answered the phone again.

I hung up on him.

After all that waiting, I choked and hung up. What am I 15? Plus, who hangs up on people in 2009 when phones aren’t even sold without caller ID anymore?

So I hung up and then felt like a jerk and then did what I always do when I make a stupid mistake…I called Dan.

“Bud, I just called Rosie’s show and I got seized up because the same guy answered and I didn’t want to be a stalker and now I’m so mad at myself and why do I always do shit like this and I don’t want to be afraid and they’re not talking about rain anymore and I’m so stupid.”

“Call back,” he said. “Lo, it’s like a 19-year-old intern answering the phones. Call back.”

So I did. Another, deeper voice picked up. (This could have very well been the same guy but I chose to believe it wasn’t.)

He told me he liked my energy (this comment is part of what makes me think it was the same guy) and asked me if I wanted to play a game. (I didn’t. I don’t love radio games.)

“Sure!” I said.

And while listening in to the show I heard Rosie play a round of “What’s That Sound?” with a lady and then decide not to go on with the game. (It was a terrible game.) Fuck, I thought. They’re going to send me away again.

The guy came back on the phone and said, “Hey Laura. They’re going to be talking about Facebook next, do you have any thoughts or stories about Facebook?”

Jack. Fucking. Pot.

Why yes I do.

He had already warned me that they didn’t want any of that “I’m such a big fan!” stuff so I knew I couldn’t spazz out (as I did when I met her). Spazzy in person can be understood. Spazzy over the phone just sounds crazy. So while on hold I worked to compose myself.

And then I heard Rosie O’Donnell, my childhood hero and adulthood sheroe say, “We’ve got Laura on the phone from New Hampshire. Laura, are you into the whole Facebook thing?”

I swallowed the crazy (though my voice was definitely higher than normal) and off I went. I admitted how in the beginning I used to go in under Dan’s account and poke around not quite ready to make the commitment. When I finally did join myself I quickly received a friend request from one of the biggest douche bags I’ve ever known. (Hint: I know him from high school.) After a few days of sitting on the decision (and this was in the beginning, before I realized just how random one’s FB friend list gets) I ignored his request. I didn’t want him all in my business, seeing my pictures, knowing my birthday. This was just about a year ago (I think to the week) and this decision still haunts me.

Let me tell you why: What if he’s not a douche bag anymore? What if the reason he was a douche bag is because something really terrible happened to him and in the 10 years since I’ve known him he’s become the type of person who teaches orphans how to knit? What does this say about me and my capacity for forgiveness? Am I an angry person? I’ve changed a lot in 10 years and he may have too. Where is my open mind? My compassion?

I know it’s crazy. I’m not under any illusions that this guy lost any sleep over it. I just feel like a jerk.

And Rosie, as expected, got it.

“Oh, you’re like me and you obsess about everything…” she said. “Let it go, Laura. Let it go.”

And she thanked me for calling, said she would send me free stuff and I was put back on the line with the screener who took my address info, etc. (This is the abbreviated version---Weanie got in on the action a bit and Rosie said I’m allowed to reject douche bags…though on the phone call we referred to him as “a bully.”)

After I gave the call screener my info, I grew a pair and asked him if I could stay on the line and listen in and he let me. (I was putting laundry away…Don’t judge me!)

Had the experience ended there I would have been satisfied. I didn’t get banned from calling in and the words that (That?) came out of my mouth made sense in the order in which (Which? Shoot, I thought I had it.) they arrived. And I got through the call without screaming, “I love you Rosie!" in her ear.

But it didn’t end there.

I’m listening, listening, listening and the conversation takes a wonderful turn into a subject in which I consider myself to be, and I don’t think I’m giving myself too much credit here, a bit of an expert.

Popping zits.

(She had the founder of www.popthatzit.com on and was playing clips from the site and asking him how it all began. If you are a zit popper and have a strong stomach, do yourself a favor and check out this site. Videos and videos of people popping zits, lancing boils and stabbing cysts. Do not check it out while eating. One late night in London while Dan and I were in bed checking e-mail and reviewing the day, he and I perused this website. Sick shit but delightful if you’re into that kind of thing. In ultimate Rosie style she gave the guy, whose wife delivered their first child prematurely only days ago, a ton of baby stuff.)

Anyway, I’m listening in, folding Dan’s undies and cracking up. She’s playing audio clips of people screaming in response to these massive, spewing zits and I’m dying. One woman called in to admit she filmed one of the videos. I’m in heaven.

And then the screener comes back and says we’re talking about popping zits do you have any passionate feelings on the subject and want to come back on the line?

HOO! RA!

I’ll never forget the first time I realized my love of popping zits was out of the ordinary. I was sitting in Economics class (we’ll save for later what the fuck I was doing in an Economics class) and the kid in front of me had a mountainous, white, ready-to-burst-with-only-the-slightest-bit-of-effort pimple on the back of his neck. I actually asked him if I could pop it (what’s wrong with me?) and in response got the meanest, nastiest look I’ve ever received to this day. (And can you blame him?)

I told the screener that I live for this shit and once again I was on the phone with ROSIE O’DONNELL talking zits. I wasn’t even nervous this time around.

“I feel like these are my people,” I said of the other callers after she introduced me (again as Laura from New Hampshire).

I told the story of how the good lordy blessed me with a husband (oh Dan I’m so sorry) who has…headne. For whatever reason (and he shampoos daily) the guy gets tiny, poppable whiteheads on his head...quite often.

“On his forehead?” Rosie asked.

“No, on his scalp. Sometimes his hair will part in such a way that I see one and my eyes zero in and he says to me, ‘Look at my eyes. Stop looking at my head!’”

Sometimes at night in bed I break out the flashlight like a miner or lean in with the lamp off my bedside table to take inventory of his headne. He says it’s abuse but mostly he offers them up like gifts to me. (“You wanna pop something?” he’ll ask. Soul mates.)

I told Rosie, “When things are rough between us sometimes this is what keeps me hanging on.”

And I got a giant, classic, Rosie O’Donnell laugh.

Bliss.

She’s also a popper and we talked about having tissues or paper towels ready for the yield.

“You have to get your props ready,” I said.

Loved it. Loved every second of it.

We wrapped it up and I was back on the line with the screener. He asked for my address again and I started to say that they had already taken my information when he said, “Oh yeah, this is Laura Mellow.” I’m hoping this is indicative of my future status as a regular caller. Sort of like Howard Stern’s Wack Pack.

I mean, what else do people do between 10 and 12 every day?