For some bizarre reason, in the last month or so I keep receiving daily calls from an online pharmacy advising me that I have a prescription to refill. I don't. I've never used an online pharmacy. And I've told them this, over and over again.
I read somewhere that legally, all it takes to stop telemarketers from calling is to announce calmly and definitively: "Please take my name off your list and don't call me again." I've done that in the past and it has worked perfectly well. But not with this pharmacy. I tried asking nicely, then forcefully, then pleadingly, then angrily; despite being reassured each time that my request was being honored, the calls kept coming.
There's nothing more depressing than when your phone rings several times a day and more often than not, it's a telemarketer. You're hoping it's a friend or someone calling to invite you out or maybe even a great work opportunity you've been waiting for, but no, you check the caller ID and it starts with 1-866 or 1-888. You die a tiny death each time, like when you get a card on Valentine's Day and it's from your mother. (Yep, that's happened to me a lot, I'm sorry to say.) The display might as well just spell out 1-866-NYAHNYAH!
Many people advise that the best way to fuck these callers up is to pick up and then walk away from the phone for a while. Tried that, didn't work. There's also a website where you can go to get on the Do Not Call registry, but have you seen how much detailed information you have to give them? (a) I think there's quite enough information about me out there already, thank you; and (b) Who has time for this?
Anyway, I wanted to get these people on a grassroots level. I wanted to cause them the kind of psychological harm their calls were causing me. So a few days ago, I picked up the phone, held it right up to my mouth and let out the world's loudest, lung-emptying horror-movie scream.
I terrified the cats and probably the neighbors, but it felt pretty good it a cathartic sort of way. And when I didn't hear from them for a few days, I was convinced it had done the trick. But the calls started again. I screamed some more. I even held the phone up to the speakers to make them listen to Brian Lehrer at full blast. (Pretty crap, I admit, but it's what I had on at the time.) Yet the fuckers keep calling.
I'm pretty sure I have to give in and go the government-sanctioned route, but before I do, I want to try a little experiment. I'm going out to buy a whistle.
UPDATE 04/04/07: Today my online pharmacy friend got a big old earful of whistle. Take that, pill pusher!
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