About three weeks ago, some lady named Crystal gave MY cell phone number to about forty thousand people, and now my life is misery. I started out being nice when the first few calls came in; transitioned to impatient; moved on to vulgarities; and am now in full-on rage.
There are some very stupid people in this world.
There’s one guy, who sounds like he’s my age, who calls about every other day - and has for three weeks now - and asks to speak with Crystal. First I told him he had the wrong number. Then I shifted to ignoring the calls. His number came up so frequently on the phone that I just ignored it. Yesterday morning, I answered his call, and when he asked for Crystal (after I’d told him at least five times this isn’t her number) I told him she was performing a lewd act with me right now and couldn’t talk.
If you’ve ever seen the raucously hilarious 1986 Danny DeVito-Bette Middler movie “Ruthless People”, you’ll know the line I used, regarding the lewd act. If you haven’t seen the movie, rent it. I guarantee you’ll be in stitches. Just don’t let the youngsters get their hands on it.
Crystal shops at Wal-Mart, and no doubt visits their website, and she likes to buy ringtones. I know this because every day I get a mess of browser messages on my cell phone from these outfits and many others, who think I’m Crystal.
Crystal must have tried to do business with a home security company in Illinois. I know this because it’s among the score of idiots who keep calling. They were so annoying and called so many times that last week I called their number, got through their phone tree far enough to ALMOST reach the person who could remove my number from their calling list - and got her voicemail. I left a polite message.
One of this home security company’s salespeople called again Friday, so my voicemail message did no good. I called the company back, got to the same person’s voicemail, and left a non-flattering message.
No one has ever had my cell phone number but me. I was among the very first to have a 698-prefix number a couple days after the 698 prefix was opened in the 608 area code. Back then, the company was called “Cingular”, but now it’s AT+T.
The thing that annoys me the most is the number of people who’ve called my number repeatedly, expecting to talk to Crystal. Since I sit at a desk in my home office for hour after hour every day, it’s easy to jot down the numbers of the people that call and note how many of them will wait a day, and call again.
I can understand calling right back if you think you’ve misdialed, but not waiting a day and calling the same number again. Particularly when you’ve confirmed the number with the person you reached (me) and that person (me) has told you Crystal gave the wrong number to a lot of people.
The old saw goes “repeating the same behavior with the expectation of a different outcome is one of the definitions of insanity”.
As I said, there’s a lot of stupid people out there.
So maybe you should "become" Crystal.
ReplyDeleteCallers would get a message saying they will be charged $2.99 per minute if they do not disconnect in 5 seconds.
"Before we transfer your call to Crystal ... We're sure you are familiar with the Bible's description of the End Times, but did you know tere is preaching among us that the Rapture has already happened? That's what the prophet Yhtomit Yrael was referring to when he returned from his higher plane of consciousness and asked ... "Where is everybody?"
Here are just a few of the people you may not have seen in a while (Tim begins reading names from a random page of the phone book...>
If any folks are still on the line after that lengthy message, maybe you should follow up by actually billing them. If nothing else you'd get good fodder for a follow-up blog entry.
That, was hilarious. My first cell phone number was the same as Wisconsin Cheeseman, only with a different area code. I sent the first 20 or 30 so on the right path, and alerted the company. But the company just said too bad. They probably should have been nicer.
ReplyDeleteHello.
ReplyDeleteThis is Crystal's Psychic Hot Line.
We know who you are, and we know what you want.
At the sound of the tone, please hang-up.