I have to talk today about one of those little modern annoyances. I know at least some of you are dealing with it as well. And while it is a MINOR annoyance, compared to disease or famine or other issues those of us who have a decent income and live in the developed world don't really have to deal with too much, it is still one of those things that drives me crazy.

Because it is something that should NOT be. It completely destroys my ability to accept, Professor Pangloss-like, that this is the "best of best possible worlds." It intrudes upon my free time, shatters my concentration, and makes me angry.

It is, if you haven't guessed already, those poxy plaguey pre-recorded calls selling either extended car warranties, or warning that the interest rate on credit cards is about to go up.

I KNOW these are scams. You do not need to tell me. I am on the Federal Do Not Call list, which means that the ONLY businesses allowed to call me should be ones with whom I already do business, charities, and political organizations. (Oh, and poll-takers.) So I figure any business that is breaking the law (granted, a law lacking in any teeth whatsoever) and that is going DIRECTLY against the wishes of a particular person (because honestly, how much more clearly can you say "I do not want to be cold-called at home" than by putting your name on that list?) has to be doing business in an illegal manner.

I also figure it must be like that old Nigerian 419 scam - enough people fall for it, enough people are foolish enough to send money in, to make it profitable to keep going. (Fools. And they are making it worse for the rest of us. The tragedy of the commons, indeed.)

I get three or four of these a week, sometimes more, sometimes one or two a day for a while. Most of the time they come when I'm not home and click over to my voice mail, where I typically delete them upon the first few words of the message. (though that may change).

But last night - last night, at 5:45 pm, when I had FINALLY got home from a long day at work that included a tensemaking lab involving hazardous chemicals, when I had FINALLY sat down at the piano to practice, when I figured I could JUST squeeze in an hour of practice around the other things I had to do that evening, the phone rang.

I know, I know: I should just turn the ringer off, and I think I will be doing that in the future.

But I answered - not knowing who it might be (I don't have caller ID, and it wouldn't be that useful to me: I'd still have to get up and go to the phone to see who was calling).

It was some call claiming my credit-card interest rates are about to go up.

(Like the old joke about the hillbilly kid and the Thermos bottle: "How do it KNOW?" I have not received any notification from either credit union that I have a card through - and I know they would notify me, they are very good about that sort of thing. So, once again: SCAM)

At that point, I was fuming. My concentration was shattered. (I had been right at a tricky part that I had kept messing up). So when it said, "Press 1 to take advantage of this offer!" I pressed 1.

And waited through a minute or two of elevator music.

And then, when a woman came on and asked me if I wanted to take advantage of their EXCITING OFFER, I said:

"No. My number is (redacted). I want you to put me on your Do Not Call List. I have received three and four of these calls weekly, sometimes more than one a day. I often work at home* and I do not like having my privacy invaded and my concentration interrupted by a scam artist trying to sell me something. I regard this as harassment. Take my name off your list and never call me again."

She had no response, by which I assume she had either hung up, put the phone on speakerphone/mute and she and her cronies in the boiler room were making the universal Crazy Lady symbol next to their heads**, or she had muted the phone so if necessary it could later be claimed she never heard my request.

(*yes, grading is technically work.)
(**If not wanting these calls, and getting angry and fed up with them means I'm crazy, then I don't want to be sane)

Later, I looked on line and found that there's really nothing to be done.

Which is what makes this so infuriating, and makes me feel so helpless - apparently the scammers often spoof the numbers called-from, so if you have caller ID, you get a fake number showing up - when you report it, you're told it's not in service.

Asking for a company name and address either gets you hung up on, or if the company gets shut down, another one under a different name opens up soon.

It's like athlete's foot - you can't get rid of it. Infuriating.

And what's worse? Apparently some folks who use cell phones get these calls on their cell phones - coincidentally my soils lab folks and I had been talking about this while waiting for the sulfur test to develop and several of them said they'd gotten the scam calls on their cell phones. Which is even worse, because then YOU'RE paying for someone to try to scam you.

So, last night, at the end of my rope, sick and fed up with these calls, I considered the options.

Caller ID, while it might be useful otherwise, really won't solve the problem of "have to jump up and run to the phone" because I'd still have to go and see what number. And I think - though I could be wrong on this - someone calling from an unlisted number would show up in the same way as a scammer would - "Number blocked."

There's also something called Anonymous Call Block, but that's only useful (apparently, according to the AT &T website) if you happen to have a human stalker right in the same town where you are - it does not block "out of range" calls, and most infuriatingly, it does not block telemarketers.

I could also simply change my outbound voice mail message to something like, "You have reached (number redacted). Because of the high volume of telemarketing calls I am receiving - in direct contravention to the federal Do Not Call list - I am no longer answering my phone. Please leave your name, your number, a short message, and I will get back to you as soon as I check my messages." And then turn the ringer off on my phone.

While I don't LIKE that - because sometimes there are calls you really do need to take as soon as they come in - it would keep me more sane. And it has the added bonus of not announcing in any way, "I am not home right now." (because sometimes would be burglars call houses they are casing to see if someone might be home)

The other option - which only occurred to me this morning, and which I think I may use - is much simpler and less passive-aggressive. I will just do what I did in college - turn the ringer off on the phone during the times I don't want to take calls, and then turn it back on (I'd have to make myself some kind of a reminder note so I don't forget) when I'm done grading, or practicing piano, or reading. (One year when I was in college, my phone number was one digit off from a pizza place that was open late into the night. You can imagine the types of calls I got at 1 am until I realized I could turn off the ringer on my phone.)

But, the thing is - I should not HAVE to do that. But I guess I will.

Though I admit sometimes the activist part of my brain gets tripped a little - like last night when I took the woman to task for calling me - and I become tempted to NOT delete the messages left on my phone, to listen to them through and take down the number they suggest calling, and then call them. Multiple times. And do things like play a recording of the SpongeBob SquarePants "F.U.N. song" when someone picks up. Or read German poetry (my German pronunciation is atrocious, but whatever). Or tell them that God's gonna get them. Or something. Some kind of semi-surreal protest against being called at home.

Or call them back and ask the telemarketer for his/her home number, so *I* can call *them* at home when they're trying to, I don't know, read to their kids or cook dinner or some such. (And yeah, I know - the people who work in call centers, often that's the only job they can get, but still. And maybe I could ask for their manager's number.)

Or call the number, ask for the name and address of the business, and even though I know it will do no good, report them to the BBB and the FCC and anyone else I can think of who might crack down on them. Because this is so totally unnecessary. These businesses are doing something illegal - granted, they're not raping or robbing (well, except from the people who send them money) or anything like that - but still, it is frustrating to me that they stay in business.