It went like this:
Phone: Bring bring, bring bring.
Me: Hello! It's Alexis!
Caller: Hello Mrs Harlot please don't panic this is not a marketing call and I am not trying to sell you anything my name is Blah Blah from Blah Blah Blah Marketing and I'm going to speak to you for thirty seconds are you and your partner employed full-time or part-time.
Me: Yes! Hello!
Caller: Great will you and your partner be employed for the next five years.
Me: That sounds lovely!
Caller: Do you and your partner own your own home outright or [pause while caller shifts into character] like me [pause for warm flow of fellow-feeling] are you paying off a mortgage?
Me: No.
[Exit caller.]
Phone: Purr purr, purr purr.
7 comments:
You're obviously not a fan of the "Do not call" register or an inveterate screener (I consider the answering machine to be one of the greatest relative-diverting inventions of all time). I swear when the phone rings, a bad habit I picked up from my mother (who swears a bit more sedately than I do).
No, I welcome all telemarketers and concerned others interested in my home-ownership status.
To paraphrase a genius of the highest order, "I'm going to become rich and famous upon inventing a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the telephone."
fu fu fu
If you don't mind me saying so, Alexis, you often seem able to find enjoyment in some very unusual places. I have my answering machine, my silent number and, now, the "Do not call" register as part of my fortress. I also have a habit of shutting all the curtains and pretending I'm not home when salespeople come to the door.
I'm on the Do not call register, but they still get through, and I still answer the phone, because I love hanging up. I know when it's hang-up time when:
[a] there's a weird pause as the computer switches over to the speaker
[b] I'm called Mrs [Best Beloved], as I use my own name
[c] they try to sell something to my 11 year old son and his brow starts to wrinkle in confusion.
And I always say NO to that question about mortgages because it's none of their damn business.
And I love the feeling of just having hung up, as I dare not do it to anyone I know...
Ampersand Duck, you are a mensch and a lion, but I am pathologically constrained by my upbringing and general phobia of authority figures (or faux authority figures, like telemarketers) not to answer any question put to me by a stranger with anything but polite honesty. The scathing and righteous invective comes to me later.
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