Lately, I’ve been getting these phone calls on my cell phone where it displays the number but doesn’t register with any of the names in my phonebook. I find these calls to be the worst. They’re even worse than “”restricted caller,”” although “”restricted caller”” is usually an asshole, too. Restricted callers tend to live in L.A. and not San Diego — no one blocks their number in San Diego. I attribute this mainly to that huge campaign Pacific Bell had five years ago in L.A., telling people that they could block their phone numbers. I think it was probably due to some privacy lawsuit, but in the end it padded their pockets even more because a typical phone conversation with Pacific Bell is like this: “”Thank you for calling Pacific Bell. To continue in English, press one. (Yadda yadda Espanol yadda yadda dos.) If you do not have a touch-tone phone, please stay on the line.””
Do they even make non-touch-tone phones? I think the last time I had one was in 1985, and it was shaped like Pac-man and emitted pulses. It took like three minutes to dial a number.
“”Please enter your home telephone number, followed by the pound key.””
You’ll be put on hold for about 20 minutes and then get: “”For quality assurance, your phone call may be recorded. Hi, this is (60-year-old pissed-off lady’s name), can I have your home telephone number?””
I’ve often wondered why they make you type it in the first place. I also thought you needed both parties’ permission to record a telephone call in the state of California. Is this to imply that permission is just a matter of stating something, and then if the other person doesn’t hang up then it is granted? Well, spank my ass and call me Charlie; I have a few phone calls to UCSD to make concerning permission to park in “”A”” spaces.
Then, they’ll ask you your name and the last four digits of your social security number, and then you can talk about why you’re calling and just when you think the conversation is over: “”I see from our records that you have call waiting.””
“”Yup, sure do.””
“”Did you know that for the price of two additional services, you can get five? It’s called ‘The Works’ package.””
“”Yeah, I know about that, I would like just to keep call waiting.””
“”Or, for the price of three additional services, you can get 10. It’s called ‘The Super Works’ package.””
“”No shit.””
“”You get caller I.D., caller-I.D. waiting, call waiting, call forwarding, the message center, speed dial and special rings for your whole family.””
“”I can basically say anything right now, and you wouldn’t stop talking, huh?””
“”In fact, this month, and this month only, if you order Pacific Bell DSL, you can cut your monthly phone rates in half!””
“”I primarily use my phone for gay midget porn sex lines and threatening the president’s life.””
“”Then this package is totally for you!””
“”I don’t want it.””
“”But if you order it now, we’ll give you $20, and you can cancel at the end of the month! That’s like getting a $20 check for nothing!””
“”I’d have to talk to you again.””
I used to work retail, and I had to push extended warranties, and I’m very sympathetic toward commission-based sales. This being said, I think all PacBell (sorry, SBC: different name, same crappy service) representatives can go suck a fuck. Maybe instead of advertising the fact that they’ve changed the name of the company, or that caller-I.D. blocking is available, they could take that money and hire people that have graduated from high school.
But getting back to these phone calls I’ve been getting, they start out with, “”Hi, may I speak with Bertrand Fan?”” It reminds me of what you would say if you were calling someone’s parents’ house wanting to ask their daughter out in high school. Anything that starts with that nowadays sucks — it’s either a collection agency, the police or a survey. Theoretically, I shouldn’t be getting phone calls like that because I go out of my way to implement a campaign of misinformation.
Whenever anybody asks for my cell phone number who isn’t a friend, I reverse the last two digits of my phone number. It sounds more real when you do that. I was at Barona the other day, signing up for a Players Plus card, and they realized I already had an account. They asked me if my number was still the number I had freshman year, and I realized that I had inverted the numbers back then, too. I confirmed that it was the same number, since I didn’t really see a point in updating it to another fake number.
But these recent calls are apparently from UCSD, some sort of graduating survey. I’m not actually too sure because I sort of feel like a dick hanging up on them, so I just tell them to call back later, saying that I’m too busy right now. So far they’ve called at these extremely busy times: playing Monopoly, looking at www.fatchicksinparty-hats.com and during a commercial break during “”The Simpsons.””
I don’t really think it applies to me anyway; they ask questions like, “”Are you graduating this year?”” and really, only my professors can answer that. I’m really at a loss on how to deal with them. Two obvious options are actually taking the damn survey or waiting out the rest of the school year, but I’m really looking for an easier out.
I usually respond to telemarketer calls with, “”SorryI’mnot-interestedpleaseremovemefrom-yourlist.”” Sometimes I say, “”click.”” But these guys seem really friendly; definitely not your run-of-the-mill telemarketers. They always ask if it’s an inconvenient time for me. In other words, they’d be really bad in a boiler room. When the hell is it ever a convenient time for people to talk to telemarketers? Well, last night might have been amusing, it would have been a nice interlude between my seventh or eighth shot of Jaegermeister. At that point, I really would have talked to anybody that called me.
You ever wake up the next day with a hangover and go through your recent calls list? It never fails to fascinate me; people I haven’t talked to in months are usually at the top. Some of those people are even on my blacklist ringtone — the one that rings, telling me not to pick up the phone unless I want to endure a slow, painful auditory death.
Want to tell Bertrand to stop that? E-mail him at [email protected].