My phone has dementia.

I had a phone interview today for a sales job in Portland. It was just the first round; I'm sure I won't get the job. But still, you don't want a cell phone like mine when you're going through this process, whether you think you've got a fighting chance or not of getting hired. That's because my phone is like an old person in a retirement home: it's cracked and creaky-jointed and it falls asleep all the time.

When I say "falls asleep," I mean it just cuts off, without warning, without reason, all the freaking time. On average, it happens about once every ten minutes. Sometimes, like tonight when I was talking to Tom, it will go a full hour without hitch. Others, like this afternoon when I was talking to Tom, I wouldn't even be able to finish a story without having to redial.

That's why, after the words "hello" and "yes," the first thing I said tonight in my interview was, "Listen, before we start talking, I just want to warn you: my phone is really old, and sometimes it just dies. So if that happens, please, bear with me."

Literally less than four seconds later, all went silent.

When she called back, a couple of minutes later, I made some joke about how I needed to euthanize my phone soon. And she laughed! This was a good sign. A good rule of thumb when looking for jobs is that, during the first interview, if you make a euthanasia joke, and they don't laugh, that means you probably aren't going to get the opportunity to make a euthanasia joke during the second interview, for there probably won't be a second interview.

Me? I got the second interview.