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Telemarketing
It's inevitable that it will happen at 6:42pm whilst you are in the midst of devouring your second forkful of lamb chop, couscous or whatever you have selected for dinner on that particular night. The telephone rings, and albeit you have a policy of never answering the phone while dining, you pick up the receiver just to confirm your thoughts that Aunt Esther did not just suffer a fatal heart attack or that cousin Louie did not expire due to an unfortunate reaction to his legume allergy while eating peanut M&M's at the new Adam Sandler movie.
You answer hello. Silence. Hello again. Pause.
At that precise moment it occurs to you that you are about to suffer a fate worse than a death in the family...it's a telemarketer on the line!
Mr. Fuhr? (always pronounced as fur and always spoken in a monotone voice that is apparently being read off of a computer screen in Ames, Iowa).
And that's as far as I will ever let them get because I am certain that I didn't win a million dollars, (as I refuse to enter into any type of lottery or raffle), I don't need a 2 day vacation in Myrtle Beach SC so that I will be entrapped for a three hour lecture in an EconoLodge Motel conference room, and I don't need my chimney swept again for the fourth time this spring at the reasonable rip-off rate of just $659 dollars. I just simply say...
"I don't accept any telemarketing calls, take me off of your phone list and never call me again!"
And it works. Legally they can't call you back without being fined (provided you file a claim) and the amounts can be substantial if they abuse your cease and desist invocation.
So you go back to your now less than hot Bird's Eye green bean and Campbell's cream of mushroom soup mixed with those crunchy canned onion rings concoction, satisfied you've beaten the system this one time. You open your mouth wide and then your second phone line rings. That's right.
They've got a phone call list in sequential order and you've just popped up again! Now you must decide whether to finish dinner or just buy that damned miraculous erection herbal supplement that smacks of a Viagara patent infringement lawsuit! Hard choice...pun intended.