The Similkameen News Leader
Editorial
April 22, 2008
QUICK DRAW McGRAW
We were sitting in front of the television the other night and in the middle of a conversation the phone rang.
She casually picked up the cordless phone, glanced at the caller ID and in what seemed like lightning fast reflexes, answered and then hung up the phone and returned it back to it's resting place all in a matter of milliseconds. All while still talking to me and simultaneously controlling the volume of the commercials on the program we were sort of watching.
The finger action with the phone would have been prime video gamer material, but I know she doesn't participate in the sport.
I did ask who was on the phone, though.
Apparently a phone solicitor of some kind trying to sell us something we didn't need. I had been stuck on the phone only days before with a pleasant young man I could barely understand who was trying to sell me on the wonders of being pre-approved for an item I'm pretty sure I didn't need then or now.
Anyway, I'm a little shocked that she hung up on some poor schmuck trying to make a living bothering people at home when they are watching TV. Or at least I was until she explained to me it was likely an automated phone system and that it happens all the time.
She was right. I used to print out a report of the phone calls we were receiving when it appeared that we were receiving many Ohang ups' on the answering machine.
It didn't take long to figure out we were, at one point, receiving up to ten calls a day. Many of them from the same place. The volume has since dropped to maybe one every day or so, but the fact remains, we still get too many annoying phone calls at home and I can't bring myself to hang up on them. I do know how to say Ono' but I will let them say their piece. I like to say it has to do with how I was raised but in actual fact I think it's because I know what it's like to Owork the phones' having done it part-time one summer many years ago.
There were a number of us in a room, each with a script detailing all possible scenarios and the responses necessary to get the sale along with our own phone and page torn out of the phone book.
Which is probably why I was a little stunned by her slight of hand trick with the cordless phone.
That was until a few days later when I made the mistake of answering the phone and discovering a pleasant young man on the other end trying to convince me to let go of my grip on a minimum of $15.00 in the form of a donation. I turned him down as nicely as I could. He turned it up a notch and actually tried to guilt me into giving up $15.00 and suggested that I wouldn't want to feel that I wasn't doing my part by helping the organization I suspect he's earning a commission from.
It got to a point where I had to actually hang up on him. I think that was a first and it taught me something.
I think I need her to show me that one-handed move of hers.
