Line in the Sand Time

/ March 23, 2014

That’s it, no more I’m drawing a line in the sand.  I am never answering the phone to a number that I don’t recognise.  I’m sending out a mass email to all my friends and family explaining this fact and that if they have a silent number they will need to text me or I won’t answer anymore.  How many godforsaken lists sold to marketing companies can one person be on.  Ringing at dinner time and worse if you don’t pick up the keep ringing.  I mean if nobody picks up after about 5 or 6 rings you should figure that they’re out or not answering.

But no and our house phone has some weird ass protocol that I have to go through to shorten the time it takes to go to msg bank and I still haven’t figured out how to use it.  So it rings, and it rings and it rings until I am quite prepared to take a cleaver to the device just to shut it the hell up. (haven’t figured out how to mute the call sound either sigh)

Do I want solar panels, how’s my insurance, would I like a free holiday – just come to a free lecture and you too could experience the joys of timeshare.  What’s worse is they seem to have my mobile as well so if I don’t answer the house phone next thing I know my mobile kicks into gear and the whole song and dance starts again.  Fortunately I know how to mute it and reduce the number of rings.  So that’s it, if I don’t recognise the number I’m not speaking to you. Line drawn and they better be respecting that line or I may just have to be a little less than pleasant.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday 

Posting in March

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40 thoughts on “Line in the Sand Time”

  1. Great rant! I am so tired of being a commodity 24/7. The junk mail, the phone, the salesmen at the door. It seems like the more I try to get taken off lists, the more calls I get. The worst of all is the gov’s do not call list. I’m starting to believe that if you call that number, they simply distribute your info world wide.

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    • It’s why a lot of people don’t give to charity as those lists get stolen and sold and suddenly you have half a dozen groups you’ve never heard of emailing, phoning even texting. The same for frequent flyer and other things of that nature. I still donate but it’s annoying getting inundated.

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    • Only problem here is if I did that my lovely but somewhat weird family would immediately presume we were being held hostage by those with nefarious aims and rather than check in by mobile (the don’t trust those new fangled things) they’d leap straight to calling the police.

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  6. We have something here in Canada that’s run by the government, called the National Do Not Call list. We can register our numbers on it to make sure we don’t receive unsolicited telemarketing calls. It kinda works… Maybe you have something similar that you’re not aware of there. Worth googling.
    Anyway, last time I bought phones, I purposely got them with a mute ring option. Next time you need new ones, look into it.
    Thanks for joining SoCS!

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  8. I’d say about 80% of incoming calls are sales pitches. I don’t answer anything I do not recognize. During our last Federal election there were some very questionable automated polls, too. Bother!

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  9. I hear ya! We always have a “land line” due to my Dad being on a different service and well, we might never hear from him otherwise. But this time when we hooked up, I instantly began getting bill collection calls for another person! It took me a dozen calls, denials and finally threats to call an attorney as well as a call to the phone company to inquire about our number and why we got a recycled “bad” one. To our surprise-and horror- we were told that the number never belonged to the irresponsible female in question and she had been using this number erroneously made up as she worked her way into massive debt with rental companies, financial institutions and who knows what else. After months of this torture, they finally got us “off their list”. Within weeks it began all over with a new name. These days I rarely look at it when it rings. Guess my Dad will have to used his skills at fire building and start sending smoke signals. Geesh.
    Thanks for following!

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  12. My sister, who is brilliant, did these two things: 1) Registered her number on the Do Not Call registry. Big deal? Wait: 2) Knowing that annoying callers were violating the DNC registry rules, she got a toy that emits the blaring of a semi’s airhorn. When an annoying call arrives, she plays this into the phone. Over the course of a couple of years, her unwanted calls have almost disappeared.

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  14. I am with you on this one! I hate those pesky ‘no number’ callers. I daren’t answer the call and yet, I spend the next hour wondering if it was someone important – surely not if they haven’t got a number! And the awkward times they call – as we just sit down for our evening meal, we have to endure that constant ringing drone…argh! We daren’t pick it up, just incase someone tried to sell us new windows for the sixteenth time! And no I don’t care if their buy one get one free, I’ve already got an adequate set of windows THANKS!!! Sorry got a bit carried away – bit trust me, I feel your pain. Now pass me the cleaver!

    Great rant – you know I love a good rant!

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    • With us it life insurance, health, insurance, car insurance any type of insurance you can think of. I’ve gone from politely saying oh interesting but we’re fine (that just starts them off again) to staring at the phone as it rings during the meal as if it carries news of the plague.

      I’ll see your cleaver and raise you a machete and don’t worry there is no such thing as getting carried away in regards to this topic. All responses of a hysterical nature are fully justified.

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      • We’ve actually had our phone line cut off – our crazy neighbours have cut our phone wires TWICE now (don’t ask) I’ll leave this for a future rant! However, I’m now thinking its a blessing in disguise…peaceful meal times, no hour long winded conversations of repeating yourself “I’m not interested!”, no running frantically to the phone – only to face the disappointment of the ‘no number’ caller. It’s brilliant. We are moving house shortly and in will go our new phone line – complete with pesky phone calls and ‘no number’ calls. Can’t say I’m looking forward to this! *gets the machete ready*.

        I am looking forward to your next rant though!

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  15. It got so bad for us that we changed our phone number AND we got it unlisted. We also don’t really give it out. If we have to, we’ll usually give out our cell phone # instead. Our life has gotten so much more peaceful! Sometimes, the phone only rings once or twice the entire day . . .

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