A Christmas Tale of My Own

So last night, my wife and I watched the christmas classic "Christmas Vacation" for like the hundredth time. Poor Clark (Chevy Chase) tries so hard to pull off the perfect family Christmas celebration and ultimately does. And my little tale has to do with the character, Clark W. Griswold.

It was around Christmas 2005. I was working for a telecommunications company that at the time was still going gangbusters and one of our most lucrative customers was a factory in South Deerfield, MA that made food grade packaging film (think the clear plastic wrap around a package of steaks). There was a big telecom project going on that required two of us to be there working on it. Our customer contact was a guy named Clark Sylvester and we had been dealing with him for years. He was the go to guy for anything in the plant facility wise. We got on site, met with Clark, and got our work assignments. We needed to confer with Clark when we were done before going any further. That day, Clark was not going to be in his office but out and about in the plant. He told us to page him over the P.A. system and he would call us back. I jokingly said to Paul my co-worker, "I better make sure I don't accidentally page Clark Griswold, ha-ha." Because as smart and organized as our Clark was, he was also kind of goofy. We got to work for the next few hours.

When we finished we returned to our equipment room, got some paperwork and miscellaneous items together, and I grabbed the phone and punched the "PAGE" button. I started talking without thinking... "Clark Griswold call 2599. Clark Griswold 2599." I hung up the phone and clapped my hand over my mouth. "Fuck! What did I just do?" I thought Paul was gonna piss himself laughing. Of course no one called, because Clark Griswold doesn't work there, but I am pretty sure someone somewhere on the factory floor was also having a good laugh. We waited several minutes before attempting the page again. I tried to get Paul to do it but he would have no part of it. So I spent those minutes rehearsing what I was going to say. I picked up the phone, punched the button, and successfully paged Clark with his proper name. Imagine that, he immediately called us back and never questioned us about the bogus page.