-by Fajitas

Given Grumble’s long standing tradition of decrying hypocracy, idiocy, and anything else with legs, I’m rather amazed that no one has yet taken on that fearsome specter of society, the scourge of all in the modern age, which threatens the very fabric of our sanity during every meal we eat. I’m speaking, of course, of the telemarketer. Some may argue that more pressing concerns plague our society. Others may argue that it’s no fun going after wounded prey, but I say that it’s the best kind. It doesn’t move very fast, and it’s about to die soon anyway, so why not. My mother has a long-standing habit of being rude to telemarketers, which is undoubtedly where I get it from. I have many fond memories of the telephone ringing during dinner, my mother getting up to answer it, saying "Hello," waiting a moment, and then saying, "You know, I don’t call you during your dinner to ask you to buy things you don’t want." Sometimes she’d wait for a response. Other times she’d just hang up. However, having been reading a bit of Jung lately, I’ve come to suspect that there is something that lies in the collective unconscious, an innate and fundamental tendency in the human psyche that says "I must be as rude as I can to this pitiful excuse for a human being."

Telemarketers are human beings. This should never be forgotten. Occasionally one gets a glimpse of that. I was awakened once early on a Saturday morning. The telephone rang at that time when if the phone rings, it’s because someone is dead or dying. So of course, I rolled out of bed, leapt for the phone, and answered with a desperate "Hello?" The woman on the other end wanted to know if I wanted my windows resealed. Which doubly pissed me off, because I was in a rented apartment at the time. "It’s eight o’clock on a Saturday morning..." I began, slowly, after a long pause. And I could hear the poor lady deflate. I was clearly about the fortieth person that morning to share with her some version of the same harangue. I couldn’t really maintain the anger after that, but I did hang up on her post haste. Human though they may be, they are still evil. While the occasional one does seem to feel remorse for their vile actions, most seem to embrace the darkness whole heartedly. Or, at least, they embrace their idiocy. My favorite stands out. One day, some months back, I was sitting in my chair, reading Jung, when the phone rang. It was a little after 5 PM. Jung is, obviously, tricky reading for a hard scientist like me, and I was really deep into the middle of it. But I was expecting a phone call, so I answered the phone. I am, in general, very protective of my telephone. This is a means of coming into my house, my home. I get very irritated when people call, I answer, and without introducing themselves they immediately say, "Who is this?" "I live here," I always want to tell them. "Who the hell are you?"

So when I answer the phone with a cheery hello and the voice on the other end, after a brief pause says "Please wait for an important phone call," in that pre-recorded computer sort of way, I get pissed. The only thing that irritates me more than telemarketers is when telemarketers have the gall to use their computer to phone you and then ask you to wait for an unsolicited offer that you don’t want. That actually marked the third computers that had called me that day. That’s not actually quite true. The first two weren’t calling for me. They were both calling for Terry James. I don’t know who Terry James is. I’ve never heard of anyone named Terry James, except for the five phone calls I get each day for Terry bleeping James. Almost universally, these calls are telemarketers, as anyone who actually matters to Terry James probably has his/her current number by now. At any rate, when the first computer called me, I waited for a person and told them I wasn’t Terry James and wasn’t interested. On the second, I just hung up. Once the idiocy interrupted my reading, however, I felt like chewing someone out. So I waited.

A female voice came on. "Hello. Is Terry James there?" the lady asks. That was pretty much the last straw. I blew my lid. "There is no Terry James here! There hasn’t been a Terry James here for some time! Please don’t ever call this number again! Please take me the hell off your list and don’t ever call me again! And if you ever do call me again, do it the hell yourself instead of having a god-damned computer do it!" And then, with great satisfaction, I slammed down the receiver and ended the call. The telephone rang again, almost immediately, so close upon the heels of my hanging up that it was hard to believe it was a coincidence. My first instinct was to pick it up in anger. But then higher reasoning kicked in, and it occurred to me that no telemarketer in her right mind would call me back after a statement as vociferous as mine. I figured it’s got to be the call I’ve been waiting for. So I moderated my tone and answered the phone. "Hello?" "Hello, sir?" said a painfully familiar female voice. "I’m not a computer, I’m a person." Evil. Pure evil. She called me back. She actually called me back. And she continued the conversation as if I hadn’t hung up on her at all. At that point, my conscious mind froze, overcome by the sheer failure to communicate. Fortunately my unconscious mind kicked in, accessing the primordial impulse to shut these people up. I told her to go away and leave me alone and never darken my doorstep again. Some day, I’m quite sure, there will be a reckoning, and those who deserve to be punished for their desperate acts of telemarketing terrorism will meet their fate. Until then, I intend to simply tell every last mother @$#$% one of ‘em off.