Fun with Telemarketers...redux?

Because boy.imp is home sick and I have been woozy the last few days and fielding an absurd number of calls from companies asking for my money, I am dusting off some old stories for your amusement (yes, these actually happened).

I usually do not mind telemarketer phone calls. That is until recently. Recently they have been calling the Playground PAST 9 p.m. and on SUNDAYS!! The callers also, sometimes, work for the same company but different call centers, which means I have to turn down the same product 3-4 times a day (Discover Card, are you reading this? Think maybe you have too many people on the phone??)

All in all, these calls are very annoying. It is not too hard to guess the countries of origin: India, Philippines, or our own USA. But as annoying as these calls are, either in sales content or interpreting the accents, I never seriously considered the infamous "Do Not Call" list.

Where would be the fun in that?

If we had signed up for that list would I have ever been able to do any of the following:

1) Convince the caller offering me a 'most expenses' paid trip to Branson, Missouri to help me plan a way to take my mistress instead of my wife on the trip. The problem hinged on the fact that she could not figure a way for me to take wife.imp to the mandatory, pre-trip sales meeting (spouse ID had to be verified) and somehow leave her at home while I vacationed with the mistress.

Before you judge me, wife.imp was sitting on the sofa beside me listening to my side of the conversation. And there never was a mistress so stop the hate mail.

2) There were lots of calls made by the same male telemarketer asking for wife.imp. I usually do not get irked unless a telemarketer calls and refuses to leave the name of the company/purpose of the call. I mean if you are going to be that persistent, throw me a bone here!

But if you don't and you insist on constantly phoning day after day after day...I might just go on a rant accusing you of being my wife's current lover and that if you wanted to keep her you had better improve the quality of jewelry...etc.

I never did find out what product he was hawking. Wife.Imp thought it might be Discover trying to send another card.

3) I felt bad (marginally) accusing that previous caller of having an affair with my wife and swore not to use that particular strategy again. So the next caller that tried not to identify himself got the "paranoid, conspiracy theorist" ranting about how these calls are 'The Man's' way of keeping us under his thumb...

However none of these compare with my elder brother's masterpiece:

After ordering a complete replacement of all the windows in his house, he 'let it slip' that he did not own the house and asked if that would be a problem. The telemarketer was somewhat new and agreed it wasn't and then had to backtrack.

The gloves came off... My brother claimed he really wanted the windows and could the telemarketer call back later as he shared a party line with the landlord. But when said telemarketer called back, could he not let on that my brother spoke to him as the landlord was still upset about receiving the bill for the installation of carpeting and a few other improvements throughout the house.

The telemarketer called back 2 days later and my brother started speaking in a faux old man's voice. The first thing the telemarketer did was inform my brother that his boarder ordered 10 new windows and could he schedule a time for the company to come out. At this point my brother went off, ranting about having to pay for new carpets, refinished kitchen cabinets and new appliances. He then moved into a line about evicting the tenants.

The telemarketer, being waaaaay out of his depth, then spent the next 1/2 hour trying to convince my brother not to evict the tenants (which of course included said brother, his wife and the family hound).

I can only aspire to such greatness. But in the meantime, practice makes perfect.