Beech Tree News Network

 

“We’re rich, Cheryl,” my husband Garey said, as he hung up the phone.  “I just won one million dollars.  All I have to do is send them a thousand for processing, and my check’s in the mail.”  We both laugh.
“They ought to put people like that in jail,” he adds, “but then we’d have to feed them.”
    He’s right.  This is America, we would have to feed them, but maybe we could add to their punishment by installing telephones in their jail cells that receive only robo-calls every seven minutes or so.  I’m amazed at how many of those calls I get at work.  As soon as I hear the start of the recording, I hang up.  I don’t know anybody who sits and politely listens, so it makes me wonder why they still try.
    When we had a home phone, Garey used to love to jerk telemarketers around.  He would tell them anything.  My favorite was when he told a guy trying to sell us magazines that he couldn’t read.  The caller asked to speak to another member of the household, and Garey said, “Ain’t nobody in this house can read.”  The guy became so flustered, he hung up.  Garey said the only reason the ruse worked was because the guy was calling from New York and we lived in Kentucky.
    I walked into the kitchen once to discover the receiver cord stretched across the floor and leading into the refrigerator.  I opened the door, and sure enough, there was the receiver on the top shelf.  The phone operator was repeating, “If you’d like to make a call, please hang up,” over and over.
    “Why’s the phone in the refrigerator?” I asked.
    “I got tired of arguing with the guy,” Garey said.
    “Couldn’t you just hang up?” I asked.
    “No, cause he kept calling back,” he said, “and I was tired of hearing that operator say, “If you’d like to make a call, please hang up,” so I put the phone in the refrigerator, so I didn’t have to listen to it.
    Made perfect sense to me.
    Recently, Garey decided he’d had toxic levels of our Direct TV receiver messing up, so he decided to call them.  I warned against it.  I had gone toe to toe with them many times without getting the result I wanted, namely, a new receiver.  All they ever did was throw three free months of Showtime or Starz at me.  I could never get them to agree to just come out and see what the problem was.  Anytime, one of my family complained about the receiver and the remote, I’d tell them to call Direct themselves and stay on the line for three hours being transferred from one person to another, if they thought they could do any better, so one night, Garey did.
    We were in the living room watching TV together when he called.  I sat on the couch watching him press numbers on his phone, knowing he was listening to an automated voice presenting a list of options from which to choose.  I watched as he sat silently, probably listening to Mozart’s concerto in d minor, waiting for the next available representative.
    I went to the kitchen for water, and when I returned, he was talking to a “customer care representative” about our receiver problem.  “I don’t want any more movie channels,” he said, “what I need is a new receiver.”
    “Uh huh,” I said to myself, “I’ve heard this song and dance before.  I decided to take a bathroom break.
    When I returned to the living room, Garey was talking to somebody about our dogs.  “He must have hung up on the Direct TV people,” I thought, “I don’t blame him.”
    “Ok,” Garey said, “I’ll expect him on Wednesday between 8 and 12.”
    “Who are we expecting on Wednesday between 8 and 12?” I asked, after he’d hung up.
    “The Direct TV guy,” Garey said, “He’s bringing us a new receiver.  The girl on the phone was really nice.  She said we’d been with them for 8 years and it was time for an upgrade.”
    “You talked to her about our dogs and she gave you an upgrade,” I said, stunned.
    “No, she gave us the upgrade before I talked to her about our dogs.”
    I didn’t believe that for one second, and I was jealous for not thinking of using that ploy myself.  “We’ll see when Wednesday comes, how well talking about our dogs really worked,” I thought.
    At 7:59 on Wednesday morning, there was a Direct TV technician sitting in my driveway.  When he left, we had two new receivers with two new remotes that actually moved the channels up and down without going through Gude.  Unbelievable!
    As much as I hate to admit it, telemarketers might have met their match, and it isn’t me.