Wrong Number

"It is exhausting knowing that most of the time the phone rings, most of the time there's an email, most of the time there's a letter, someone wants something of you." - Stephen Fry

Every single morning I get a call from the Ontario Federation for Cerebral Palsy.  If I have my glasses on and can see that's who is calling, I don't pick up.  If I can't see, I pick up and tell them the same thing - "I have no household goods I wish to donate to your charity.  Please take me off your call list."  Just the same, the calls keep coming.  Because they are a charity, they are allowed to call me though my number has been registered on the Do Not Call list.  Today I sent the OFCP an email asking to be removed from their call list.  I don't know if that will help but I sure hope so.

In addition to this daily call, I get a daily call from a far off land offering duct cleaning services.  I used to be friendly in saying "no thanks" but my patience are wearing thin.  Now, I usually just hang up.  I feel bad for the people on the other end of the line who are likely sitting in a call center in India and who I know are just trying to make a living.  But my incessant pleas to be taken off these lists have fallen on deaf ears.  Perhaps they've heard I have the dirtiest ducts in town and they're just trying to be helpful.  

The telemarketing calls that irk me most, always start the same way.  I pick up the phone and hear the caller speaking to me in Arabic.  I don't speak Arabic though I can understand the odd word said in greeting or in cursing me.  When I tell the caller I don't understand, I am either disbelieved or chastized for my lack of language skills.  If by some circumstance, I am still on the line, the caller usually heads into his pitch for cheap long-distance telephone rates to the Middle East or India.  I don't know anyone in the Middle East or India. I have never made a single call to either of those regions.  If it is not a pitch for long-distance telephone plans, then it's normally a plea for donations to a religious based charity.  It feels particularly irksome to me that someone scanning a phonebook for Arabic sounding names presumes to know what my religous leanings are - though admittedly not as troubling as the day two men showed up on my front porch asking to speak with my husband using my last name.  They were clad in outfits I sometimes see in Middle Eastern markets or on television news shows of men in mosques.  I, on the other hand, was in a short skirt and t-shirt.  One of the men turned his back to me rather than cast his eyes on my uncovered skin.  They soon left when I told them there was no man of that name in my household.  

 

The next time a telemarketer calls, I suppose I should be thankful that at least they are calling from the other side of the world and not standing on my porch.