I continue to get an indecent number of Spam calls — strangers calling me, trying to get me to buy some product, hire them for some service or just give them cash for their "worthy" (and maybe it is) cause. I have a strict policy of saying no to all of them without exception but I'm on enough lists that the calls, they keep on comin'.
A few are almost pleasant, especially after I say — as I do to the more polite ones — "I'm going to do you a favor. There's no way I'm buying what you're selling. There's no need to go through the whole sales pitch." The ones that annoy me most are the ones who act like we have some pre-existing relationship and they've called me because of it. One such call might go like this…
"Mark, it's Harold Shmeckel with Shmeckel Construction. We spoke a couple months ago and you said that around the beginning of June, you'd be ready to do some upgrades of your property. My company's lead estimator will be in your area next Tuesday and I wanted to schedule him to drop by so you could discuss those improvements we talked about."
They only protest a little when I tell them we've never talked before and sometimes, I tell them, "Since you started this call by lying to me, I certainly can't trust you to do any construction work for me." Or sometimes, I play along and ask them something like, "Did we talk about refinishing my tennis court?" The caller will invariably reply that, yes, we talked about that and he assured me his company was highly experienced in refinishing tennis courts, whereupon…well, you can guess how that exchange ends.
Since I turned seventy, fewer of these calls come from contractors and more come from firms that want to arrange for my "final expenses," which means prepaying for my funeral and whatever the hell is going to be done with my body. I'm thinking of having it cryogenically frozen and then every July, they'll thaw me out for four days to host panels at Comic-Con.
The last time I got one of those "final expenses" calls, a day or three ago, I told the caller, "Sorry but there's every indication I'm going to be around a lot longer than your crummy fly-by-night company." The caller sadly muttered "Probably" and then hung up.
Lately, I get some of those "We spoke last year" calls that claim they spoke with Dorothea. Dorothea was my mother who died in 2012. For some reason, her name is still on a lot of the lists that are sold to cold-callers and my phone number is attached. I've had several solicitors call and tell me that she spoke to them that not long before, she asked them to call about cleaning out her gutters. My mother donated to a number of charities and most of them have called to remind her she hasn't made her usual donation lately.
Almost in the same category as strangers who pretend my mother and/or I spoke to them before are people who fit the following description: We spoke or met briefly way in the past…and then they call me, don't identify themselves and start a conversation based on the assumption that I will instantly recognize their voices. I had a guy do that the other day. We met ever-so-briefly at a Comic-Con years ago and I'm pretty sure we never spoke on the phone. He, like all those sales persons, wasn't showing me Caller I.D.
Still, he started right in with "How are things going?" and "What are you up to these days?" and there I was without the foggiest clue who I was talking to. He wasn't calling to try and sell me anything or to try and refinish that tennis court which I don't have…but he was still kind of annoying. I wish people wouldn't do any of this.