The phone pulls me out of a dream, and I fumble around, limbs and hair everywhere, extricating myself from flannel sheets and feline, yanking out my earplugs (apparently not adequate enough to drown out my full volume ring tone of “What is love? Baby don’t hurt me…”) and locate the source of interruption. I throw myself onto the mobile grenade to silence it – company is sleeping in the other room. I tap something green to answer: “slllllgggghhhello?” Dead pause as I slurp on my night guard, then take it out. “Hello?”
“Hi, this is Dan from blah blah blah. This call is recorded for….”
“This is not a good time,” I say. “To call.” Somehow I feel it needs clarification. Thirty seconds ago was a really great time, all warm and DEAD ASLEEP in my bed, thank you very much.
“Okay. I’ll call back at a better time.”
I hang up and wonder how he’ll know when a better time will be. (My recent call log tells me 2:17 PM was a better time for Dan.)
I’ve been getting a lot of these calls lately, from unknown numbers, and a flood of emails of biblical proportion. I know it’s my fault. In a curious, and I must say in my own defense, frugal state of mind, in the Spirit of Saving Money, I clicked on one of those ads proclaiming if I just answered a couple of questions I could get free samples mailed to me, and choose the products I want to try. I start answering the first survey, and about halfway through, realize this is all a terrible mistake and try to back out. But somewhere along the line I gave them my email and phone number. (Did I just hear a huge collective intake of breath and No, Lori, no!?) The Hell Gate has been opened and all the call center demons are on my tail.
I get a call the next day, from Jerome, who is really friendly, and maybe I’m well-rested and in a Polly Anna mood, because I talk to him a minute because he wants to send me some free money-saving coupons, $300 worth, and yadda yadda yadda, $19.95, yadda yadda yadda, magazines.
I stop him. “Magazines? We stopped all our subscriptions a couple years ago...we just had too many to deal with…everything’s on the Internet.” He then pauses, then downgrades me to “up to $100 worth of coupons” (I feel like I’ve just lost $200) and to hang on so I can talk to his supervisor to verify. I talk to the supervisor, who says everything Jerome just did, blah blah blah, all sugar, no spice, and then I come to what senses I may have left, and tell her you, know, I’m really just not interested.
“Did Jerome not do a good job of telling you about our program?” She’s arching an evil brow on the other end of the line, eyes smoldering, whip twitching by her thigh, nostrils flaring as she sniffs out Jerome.
Oh, man, lady! I don’t want to get poor Jerome in trouble! Jerome was great, really, love the guy, want to hang out with him over beers and burgers, I just changed my mind somewhere between yadda yadda and blah blah blah. I hang up quickly.
Over the last two weeks I’ve been dealing with my foolhardiness and unsubscribing to emails and deals (edeals? That should be a word, if it isn’t already). The demons have gone underground. I imagine the freebies and coupons are working for someone, and they’re saving tons of money, which is wonderful – no judgment here. I’m just a little worried about Jerome.
“Hi, this is Dan from blah blah blah. This call is recorded for….”
“This is not a good time,” I say. “To call.” Somehow I feel it needs clarification. Thirty seconds ago was a really great time, all warm and DEAD ASLEEP in my bed, thank you very much.
“Okay. I’ll call back at a better time.”
I hang up and wonder how he’ll know when a better time will be. (My recent call log tells me 2:17 PM was a better time for Dan.)
I’ve been getting a lot of these calls lately, from unknown numbers, and a flood of emails of biblical proportion. I know it’s my fault. In a curious, and I must say in my own defense, frugal state of mind, in the Spirit of Saving Money, I clicked on one of those ads proclaiming if I just answered a couple of questions I could get free samples mailed to me, and choose the products I want to try. I start answering the first survey, and about halfway through, realize this is all a terrible mistake and try to back out. But somewhere along the line I gave them my email and phone number. (Did I just hear a huge collective intake of breath and No, Lori, no!?) The Hell Gate has been opened and all the call center demons are on my tail.
I get a call the next day, from Jerome, who is really friendly, and maybe I’m well-rested and in a Polly Anna mood, because I talk to him a minute because he wants to send me some free money-saving coupons, $300 worth, and yadda yadda yadda, $19.95, yadda yadda yadda, magazines.
I stop him. “Magazines? We stopped all our subscriptions a couple years ago...we just had too many to deal with…everything’s on the Internet.” He then pauses, then downgrades me to “up to $100 worth of coupons” (I feel like I’ve just lost $200) and to hang on so I can talk to his supervisor to verify. I talk to the supervisor, who says everything Jerome just did, blah blah blah, all sugar, no spice, and then I come to what senses I may have left, and tell her you, know, I’m really just not interested.
“Did Jerome not do a good job of telling you about our program?” She’s arching an evil brow on the other end of the line, eyes smoldering, whip twitching by her thigh, nostrils flaring as she sniffs out Jerome.
Oh, man, lady! I don’t want to get poor Jerome in trouble! Jerome was great, really, love the guy, want to hang out with him over beers and burgers, I just changed my mind somewhere between yadda yadda and blah blah blah. I hang up quickly.
Over the last two weeks I’ve been dealing with my foolhardiness and unsubscribing to emails and deals (edeals? That should be a word, if it isn’t already). The demons have gone underground. I imagine the freebies and coupons are working for someone, and they’re saving tons of money, which is wonderful – no judgment here. I’m just a little worried about Jerome.
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