From 5/16/2003

Just got a call from a company called (I think) Kenworth. They mysteriously called me out of the blue to offer me anti-static wipes for the low-low cost of $1.89 per pack. While I was talking to the nice female telemarketer biped, I couldn’t help but overhear OTHER sales pitches going out at the same time, as well as an echo on the phone line itself. So not only did I have this strange talking creature (I refuse to call them human) attempting to sell me static-free wipes, but I could hear my own voice, as well as hers, and several other people in their little calling pod. So, we’ve got cheap products being sold by fake people on cheap telephone lines, located in a cheap office using cheap equipment. All very cheap. She said that she’d be happy to send me 130 packets to test for the low, low price of $1.89 per packet and that she’d expedite the shipping. I originally thought the offer was for free stuff (and I wasn’t listening, only marking out the words and giving the proper brainless backchannel grunts) so I said “Is your offer free?” and she corrected me. Then I was on the spot, but then my clever little mind came up with a very useful lie “I’m sorry, my budgets been frozen…” to which she responded “So, do you know when it will be, uh, un-frozen?” to which the only possible path while in the lie, and to get what I really wanted (her to hang up) was “For the forseeable future I’m afraid, economy is all soft these days.” She politely and VERY QUICKLY ended the conversation and hung up.

I sat there with the phone against my head, revelling in the newly established dialtone and then I realized it… the only way to make prostitutes and telemarketers go away is to profess a lack of money. It is this abject poverty which will save me from these horrible little trollish people. Every once in a while I flirt with the idea of having a siezure on the phone, or perhaps expressing my dismay at badly cutting myself with a boxcutter…

Which raises an interesting question… what do other people do to make the banes of telemarketing go away?