John's Blog

Just a word of advice to those of you using those new fangled telephone devises that are all the rage. "Hey, who's this?" probably isn't the best way to begin a phone call that you've made to me. Getting a "wrong number" call which interrupts my peace and tranquility is annoying enough, without the person calling being stupid and not realizing their mistake. Worse yet is when they choose to argue about it which just pisses me off worse than about anything. A close 2nd is when these same nudnicks leave a long and rambling message on my answering machine, which if there's not life or death issues being discussed (seldom happens) gets quickly deleted.

For the most part, caller ID allows me to ignore calls from numbers I don't recognize, but on occasion I find myself in a room where I've got an old phone, without a caller ID window. I sometimes throw caution to the winds and pick up, since the "do-not call registry" has largely eliminated telemarketing calls, so odd are that it's a call I will want to take. Unfortunately, the big loophole in this law allows groups that you have an existing relationship with to still call you.

And recently, I've been lucky enough to have my cable company take full advantage of this rule. Apparently, they don't think my monthly purchase of premium digital cable TV and internet service is giving them a large enough share of my disposable income, so they keep calling to offer me the opportunity for internet phone service. But the twenty times I've told them "no thanks" didn't seem to convey the message with the conviction and clarity that I was looking for. No, it was only when I went ballistic and told them to "never ever call here again, or I will begin to cancel the services that I have now" that I seemed to get my point across. Remarkably, I haven't heard from them since that tirade. Now, I've just got to get rid of Mr. Wrong Number.

Tags: pointless rambling