Wrong Number

Hey, kids! This is called a telephone. You can't tweet with it.

When you're young enough to still be living in your parents' house but old enough that you've started becoming perceptive about the goings-on in your parents' house, you might notice some parental behavior that makes you think, "Hmmm...that's not right," even though you've witnessed that behavior for years and until that point it seemed quite normal.

It might be your mom telling you that butter will speed up the healing on that leg wound, or your dad parking his car on the front lawn after another "late night" when he was "working" at the "office."

ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO TRY TO SELL MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS HERE
In my house, it slowly dawned on me that my mother's approach to solicitors, either on the phone or (heaven help them) at our door, was possible evidence of pathologically antisocial behavior.

If you're dying for an example...


...the following was a typical exchange:

The doorbell rings. My 15-year-old self answers the door. It's some eager fellow wearing khakis, a smart haircut, and a natural smile, armed with a clipboard.

KHAKI KEN: Hey, fella! Is your mom or dad home?

I go to retrieve my mother.

ME: Some guy is at the door.

Mother reacts as if I told her there was a guy wearing nothing but combat boots and a raincoat, writing the Gettysburg Address on our mailbox with his own feces. She rushes to the door with those heavy shuffling steps -- usually a harbinger of someone about to get a whoopin'.

KHAKI KEN: Good evening, Ma'am!

MOTHER: WHAT DO YOU MEAN, "GOOD EVENING"? HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW IT'S A GOOD EVENING?

[I curl into a fetal position and cover my ears in shame, so all I hear is muffled anger, then a door slamming. Then my mother returns to her lair in the den, stopping first to heat her coffee with the steam emanating from her ears.]

1-800-DROP-DEAD
Phone calls were equally painful. If it took more than two seconds for the person on the other line to identify herself — [thick Cajun drawl:] "Uh huh, my name is Carolyn Johnson, Mrs. [pronounces our last name slowly, phonetically, incorrectly]? And I'm calling from Time-Life regarding a great offer on some National Geographic subscriptions?" — you might as well tell my mother you were looking to enslave her children in a Publishers Clearing House factory.

It got to where I was afraid to hand the phone over to my mother anymore. By the time I hit my teens, I was able to drop my voice deep enough so telemarketers would think I was the man of the house, and I could politely decline whatever it was they were selling. (To enhance the charade, I spoke with a British accent and made a puckering sound as if I were puffing on a pipe.)

ALWAYS TRUST YOUR MOTHER

Carrier pigeon: the worst
of both worlds.

It was only once I left home that I realized that telemarketers, for the most part, actually deserve as much abuse as possible. I don't know how I denied this unambiguous truth for so long.

The reality hit me the same way I concluded that the quasi-vagrants handing out fliers on New York City street corners are at best a nuisance and at worst worthy of being tarred and covered with bird seed and bread crumbs so they can be attacked by pigeons, who will then stick to the tar, and then the Department of Health will conclude that the most humane solution would be to douse the creatures with kerosene and set ablaze, thus ridding the Big Apple of two problems plaguing the metropolis ever since a drunken Peter Stuyvesant staggered through the narrow streets of downtown New Amsterdam with a "flyeing ratt" in one hand and a stack of pamphlets extolling the virtues of the Dutch West India Company in the other.

What I mean is: the first time someone handed me a flier, I was like, "Oh, thank you!" before reading the paper to learn of a "designer shoe sale" taking place for two hours on the 8th floor of some shady, nondescript building in Chelsea. The next few times, I took the flier out of politeness. After that, I began to carry my crème brûlée torch in order to ignite the flier while it was still in the solicitor's hand.

WHERE WAS I?
So yeah, when Mrs. The Anthony Show and I got married and moved into our first place, the telemarketer swarm began.

Sorry, AT&T!

It was a day like any other, when Mrs. The Anthony Show and I were chilling on our futon, during those days before we had kids and a mortgage pressing down on us like the thumb of Atlas and we were able to just shoot the breeze for a couple of hours after work, without having to worry about cooking a meal for our kids that they won't want to eat anyway then hang out with them and watch cartoons that they might be too young to be watching and put them to bed and then after the kids go to bed Mrs. The Anthony Show has to buckle down and crank out her freelance work until some unholy hour while also juggling her schoolwork because her husband doesn't make enough money by himself to support his family thanks to bad career planning on his part and he descends to the office in the basement and instead of finishing one of his writing projects that at least has a Powerball's chance of earning some money he tools around on his little vanity blog instead.

Anyway, we're on the futon and I said to Mrs. The Anthony Show that Wouldn't it be funny if when a telemarketer called I'd become indignant and crazy and talk like I think the guy on the other end is cheating with my wife and I'd be all, "Who the hell is this? What do you want with my wife?" and ha ha ha.

Sure enough, about an hour later, the phone rang. I picked up and said hello, but there was no answer. I figured it was some sort of telecommunications glitch, or the person realized he dialed the wrong number and hung up before I answered. (This is before I learned that in some cases when your number is autodialed, there will be a pause before the thief salesperson begins speaking.) I looked over at Mrs. Anthony Show, shrugged, and yelled at what I thought was a dead line:

"WHO THE FUCK IS THIS?"

Suddenly I heard a voice — female, middle-aged, angry — spit out the following:

This is [name I can't remember] from AT&T, and you Have. A. Good. Day. [hangs up]

Imagine trying to say the above after I stepped on your foot with an even larger foot, and you have to repress your rage because I am a potential valued customer, and you'll get the idea.

AND IN CONCLUSION
My later experiences with the telemarketing community have not been as eventful, but I have had other memorable transactions with retailers and such. Those memories, however, are for future posts.