June 02, 2004

To Trick a Telemarketer

Hi, may I speak with ... Mr. um ... Nafada? Nafadae? NAFTA? And so, with that ridiculous opening, comes another wasted five minute call of pure, unadulterated harassment.

Having been away from home for so long, I had forgotten what it was like to be constantly aroused from whatever activity one might be partaking in at the moment, in the dim hope that the ringing telephone will yield a call worthy of distraction, only to have those hopes shattered with the stumbling of yet another barely literate telemarketer, struggling to pronounce my surprisingly phonetic last name. Having had the misfortune of being carless in a distinctly automobile-centric locale as Orange County, I have fielded on average nine to ten of these calls per day in the few hours I'm at home.

The initial fury has been replaced by dejected frustration. No no-call list seems to work. The calls continue, unabated, with no sign of ceasing any time soon. The spam of the telecom world has driven me to the brink of sanity, from which I may not find a way back. That's when I suddenly came across a novel approach, almost entirely accidently this morning.

I was awoken at around 8am this morning to the phone ringing. As I stumbled for the phone, still half asleep and managed to mumble Hello?, I was greeted by the usual stammering. The woman on the other side was inquiring as to my morning and looking for my father. Having just woke up, my voice not only exposed a note of drowsiness, but also was a few octaves higher than normal. This turned out to be the key in my thwarting of the evil telemarketers.

After babbling on for sometime about the LA Times and how our subscription rate was being reduced and nonsense like that, the drone asked, Did you get that, sir? Struggling to keep my voice high, I replied circumspectly, I think so? The drone then asked me how old I was, to which I responded calmly, Fourteen, ma'am. The immediate response was, Ok, we'll call back. Awesome! Reveling in my success, I could hardly wait for the next call to try out my technique. As it turned out, I wouldn't have to wait long.

About a half an hour later, I got another call. This time, it was from some bank. Before the guy on the other end couldn't even stumble over my last name, I cut him off, saying in a girly falsetto that even surprised me, I'm sorry sir, my parents stepped out for a moment. Can I take a message? He asked me my age, and I proudly replied, Twelve. A quick mumble about calling again followed after which there was a click. The sweet sound of success.

As great as this new discovery is, it now brings up a troubling dilemma. As I have mentioned before, kids are smelly, scary, and generally whack, but it now seems that I might need to speak to mine before they turn ten, if for nothing else, than to train them as elaborate call screening devices. While this is most unfortunate, if it'll get the bastard telemarketers off my back, I might be willing to sacrifice. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. A classic Catch-22.