Even though my phone number is enrolled in the do-not-call registry, I get multiple calls, daily. Mostly about my car’s warranty, or credit card payment assistance, or insurance to cover my final-resting expenses.
I answer, “no, thanks, bye,” and “no, thanks, bye,” and “no thanks, I paid for my kids’ college, they can pay to final-rest me, bye.”
Usually I ignore calls from numbers I can’t identify. But not when I’m expecting a call from a doctor or a lab or the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes people coming with a giant check but they can’t find my house.
And I’m a sucker for any call from a 749 number. But even our Shelter Island exchange isn’t sacred anymore. The other day I heard myself lying to a pleasant young lady just doing her job and trying to save the planet.
I realized how low these nuisance calls have made me sink when I said, “Bad timing, Rachel. We just put up solar panels yesterday! You have a good day, too. Bye now!”
When I pleaded my case to The Universe: “That was not my fault. Rachel forced me to lie,” I immediately felt one of those dizzying deja vu moments, and remembered hearing my sister Beverly say nearly those same words after a phone call.
Don’t make me do it!
Her incident happened while she was visiting us and tried to book a hotel room near the Islip airport for an early-morning flight back to Cleveland.
Once the booking agent dealt with that part of the transaction, she did her damnedest to convince Bev to buy a plan to get her next room at half-price.\
“No thank you,” Bev said, kept saying.
“Please stop!” she begged. “You’re forcing me to be rude. I don’t want to be rude, but…”.
She went silent, listening, rolling her eyes and pressing her lips together so that they disappeared into her face in that way that makes all five of us sisters look exactly like our mother when she was trying to not say what she was about to blurt out.
I hovered nearby because I could tell she was getting angry enough to explode, something I’d never seen. Beverly, 10 years younger than I am, was the hippie chick of the family, all love, peace and good karma. Bev said, “WhatEVER” way before anyone else thought to put those two words together that particular way. Even now, as a groovy grandma hippie chick, she’s usually more mellow than mad.
But not that day. Bev said, “Thank you, but I’m not interested. No. You aren’t listening to me. No! No! NO! Please stop!”
She was almost yelling. Or as close as this “calm” sister gets to yelling.
“I’m not about to hang up on you, I’m just hanging up. Right now. I’m saying goodbye, then I’m hanging up. Goodbye.” And she hung up.
Clearly exasperated, Bev pleaded her case: “That was not my fault. I was trying to be nice but she forced me to be rude!”
Strangers are people, too
I understood why Bev felt bad. We were raised by the same set of rules. Our mother taught us to be polite to everyone. Always.
Even to the “bushy-haired strangers” who apparently roamed Cleveland’s streets, because we were constantly warned about them.
“If a bushy-haired stranger offers you candy, what do you do?”
“Say NO! And run away fast!”
Wrong answer.
“Say ‘No, thank you’, then you run away, fast.”
Okay, I’m exaggerating, but you get my point, right?
That’s why even now, when I do answer a spam call, I maintain good manners. Because of my mother’s lessons and Beverly’s good example.
Sometimes I even try to make friends, but it’s not as easy as it was when telemarketers were friendlier.
It was better pre-robo
Those were the days when sales calls were made by real people who weren’t allowed to hang up on anyone. One of the real people actually told me that. She said the only way they could move on to their next “cold call” was after the callee hung up.
And since I’m a professional chit-chatter with too much time on my hands, that’s a match made in heaven.
“How are you today?” they would start off and I’d tell them. In detail. Then I’d ask about them. Did they have kids? “Teenagers? Oh boy! I’ve got stories to tell you about teenagers! You’re calling from Sheboygan? I’ve never been! How’s the weather up there?” Stuff like that. \\
Once, a telemarketer from Savannah, who’d seen Paula Deen in person and said that she’s much tinier than she looks on TV, gave me her favorite recipe for Paula’s chicken pot pie. I still use it.
Those are the kind of calls that I miss. Now, when I realize it’s a robo call I’ve answered, I politely say, “No thank you,” and hang up, sometimes even while the caller is still still talking. I know even my mother would forgive me, and as far as The Universe?
“WhatEVER.”
