The TV spot and a wave of radio ads seemed to be everywhere all once that week. I spent most of my drives around L.A. openmouthed with impotent rage. (For different reasons than usual.) So when my friend Randi e-mailed to say that if I wanted to meet her girlfriend, I could come and phone bank with them in West Hollywood the next weekend, I got on board. And then the intervening lying ads made sure that when I ran into a No on 8 volunteer on the street, I went ahead and signed up for Tuesday night in Silverlake as well.

I was nervous, but Sarah and Greg, our Silverlake organizers, could spot a new phone banker a mile away by that point. Sarah greeted me before I even made it to the door.

We had a half-hour orientation during which we practiced our scripts and learned the good news (an unprecedented number of volunteers), the bad news (millions of dollars flowing into the Yes on 8 campaign from the Mormon Church) and the medium news (we would be calling people who had been identified as undecided Prop 8 voters instead of random strangers, which somehow seemed a tad less terrifying). 

And then it was up to us and our cell phones. At first I was anxious about calling strangers, but that was soon swallowed up by my anxiety over the amount of paper we had to shuffle. We had voter lists, scripts, talking points for specific issues, forms to sign up new volunteers, forms for donations, and our tally sheets.

 On our tally sheets, we tracked each dial, each wrong number, each definite Yes or No voter, and then we broke down our Undecided voters by type. If we could get them to tell us why they were hesitating, we went to the talking points, offered them more information, and then gently tried to squeeze out a no vote before tallying them up and leaving them in peace.

It was tricky. 

We’d been told that our scripts had been thoroughly tested and thus had been asked not to stray, but at first that led to a kind of stilted written-English flow to our speech that made people put their antennae up almost immediately. That, plus the sudden inrush of volunteers (hats off to you, Pepperdine Law Guy!) meant that we were sitting very close together, which made it sound like we were working in some sort of boiler room. (“May I ask how you feel about same-sex marriage? Great! And how do you feel about exciting investment opportunities?”)

But, as with all things, eventually one begins to hit a rhythm. Our coaches passed out little hand bells to keep us motivated. We got to ding them every time we talked to a No voter. That sounds like the corniest thing in the universe, but within about 20 minutes it became our very lifeblood. Our whole table cheered the first time one of us got to ring the bell, and then we all rooted for those of us who hadn’t yet. If there hadn’t been a ding in a while, the bell really was like hearing an angel get its wings – we’d even hear cheers from other rooms.

It was largely a night of hanging up on answering machines and voicemail, because everyone has Caller ID now, but I was surprised at how many people actually picked up the phone and talked to me. Most of the people I talked to said they were undecided because they “needed to do more research.” I offered our Web site and about half of the people copied it down and the other half pretended to. Yes, we can hear that.

The main excitement of my first night was talking to an Undecided who cited one of our talking points in a perfect, easy lob. Joe, sitting next to me, heard me say “Actually, that’s not true…” and, seeing me shuffling for my talking points page, leapt in for the assist with his. It actually sounded pretty smooth and natural. And once I had assured my callee that second-graders would not at any point be lined up in the gymnasium for Calisthenics and Same-Sex Soul Kissing Drills, she said she’d be voting no.

One. I had changed the mind of one undecided voter.

NEXT PAGE: Unexpected acceptance