Hubby and I are dinosaurs in more ways than one, one of which is our reluctance to give up our landline. By the way, who can remember the days when you had to wait all day, not leaving the house, for the telephone company to come out and install your phone? Young people are now scratching their heads, not having a clue what I’m talking about. Anyway, we only keep our landline because it’s linked to our internet. The only person who ever calls the landline is Hubby because my cell phone may or may not be anywhere near me when he needs to call home. Nobody else ever calls us on the landline except telemarketers.

Don’t we all love telemarketers—those mysterious disembodied voices that always know when the most inconvenient time is to interrupt your day? Whether it’s when you’ve just sat down to dinner after spending an afternoon preparing something special for dinner guests or at the climax of the murder mystery you’ve been watching for the last two hours and the murderer is about to be revealed, telemarketers have the uncanny ability to choose the worst possible moment to call. Don’t even get me started on the ones who wake me from a sound sleep before 9 a.m. Don’t judge me. I’m retired.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Just let the answering machine pick up. But there’s always the possibility that it really IS an important phone call I’ve been waiting on, like Wheel of Fortune calling to tell me they want me as a contestant, and I need to let them know RIGHT NOW or forever lose my chance. Besides, the continuous ringing of the phone before the answering machine picks up gets on my nerves and prevents me from hearing who-done it on my television show. So, I generally press the answer call button and say hello. If nobody answers after my second hello, I hang up. I’ll be darned if I will be put in a waiting queue by a telemarketer.

But sometimes, someone speaks up immediately with a cheery, “Hello, how are you today?” I always want to snarl, “I was fine until you interrupted me.” But I usually hold my tongue. That’s because before I can even formulate a snarky reply, the person launches into a spiel without pausing for breath so I can insert the words, “I’m not interested.” Whether it’s Bob telling me my car warranty is expiring on a car I don’t own, Heather who has inside information that I want to sell my timeshare, or Ted from the Fraternal Order of Police asking for a donation (as if I trust Ted with my credit card number when he could just as easily be Ronald from the Professional Order of Scammers), they never give me a chance to get a word in edgewise. Sometimes, I will try to stop the monologue before they waste too much of both my time and theirs by talking over their sales pitch, saying, “I’m not interested.” But that doesn’t deter them. They go right on talking.

It’s incredible how long these people can go without breathing. They must learn this technique in telemarketing classes, along with “Don’t take no for an answer.” It makes me wonder why a person would deliberately go into this line of work knowing they will be despised more than tax collectors and verbally abused more than the referee at a losing sports game. And rejected more than authors at a book signing event. But I have to give them credit for perseverance. They’ll keep on going just like the Energizer Bunny as long as you stay on the line. They’re like the stray cat you fed once because you felt sorry for it that now takes up residence on your porch.

I know some people who delight in leading telemarketers on and then veering off into weirder and weirder territory until the telemarketer hangs up on THEM. Alas, I’m not that creative, nor do I have the time to mess with telemarketers’ heads. But I always want to say, “I would love to hear more about this, but I can’t talk now. If you’ll give me your personal number and what time you eat dinner, I’ll call you back for a nice long chat.” But so far, I haven’t gotten the chance even to say that much. At the risk of seeming rude, which I’m sure telemarketers are used to, usually the only way to get rid of a telemarketer is to hang up on them mid-sentence. It takes less than ten seconds.

I miss the good old days when you could slam down the receiver. Pressing the end call button just isn’t nearly as satisfying.