Telemarketing

More study today, only interrupted by little old ladies calling to tell me they might want to board their cat (my wife breeds and boards cats) but they haven't made up their mind yet, and several calls from telemarketers from India (dead set) calling to offer us stuff we have told them we don't want and can't afford and will never ever buy from them.

I feel sorry for people who do that job. They must know at some level how welcome they are, that they are the human equivalents of pop-up menus on your computer screen. Somehow our name has got onto a list of "gullible, weak-willed cashed-up suckers" and we get rung every day or so by people asking for our money, time or compassion, all of which are in short supply at the moment.

I have had to come up with a number of responses. They always ask if they can talk to the owner of the business. Recent responses have included -

He's dead.
We went bankrupt
There's no-one here who speaks English. These are the only words I know. There is no-one here who speaks English, these are the only words I know (repeat until they hang up)

Responses I have yet to use may consist of -
He's gone to prison, he murdered a telemarketer.
Oh God! He's dead, dead, dead! And he was so beautiful and we were going to get married (burst into tears)
Hold on, I'll just get the boss (grab a cat, put it near telephone receiver until it meows)
He is in the Inner Chamber, communicating by space-phone with Starfleet Commander Zorgon.

One thing I would like to try is to say "I'll just get him", wait a few seconds, and then speak irritably down the phone in an implausible 'foreign language':
Wubba! Wubba wub wubbubba!! Wub wubbi wub wubba? Wubbe wu Polish sausage porkchop wub wubwu!!" and so on.

The Polish sausage thing may really throw them.

Anyhow, back to the kidneys