Shoe by Gary Brookins and Susie MacNelly for July 10, 2019

I sometimes miss the person-to-person annoyance too.

Why should we have either?

I answer spam thus: “Dis golesh deli, I takink order, you want pink up you want delibry?”

If the name or number isn’t known to you, let it go to message. If it’s important, you can call back. And be grateful we all have phones where the name and number can show up. I had to answer 21 calls, pre-name-and-number-info, one day that I was expecting a call, before my wanted call came thru. Now, I can just go “Nope!” and keep waiting.

I have a little list and if the number isn’t matched to a name, I don’t answer. I get very few spam emails, but I think that’s because I rarely sign-up for anything on the internet.

I love live spam calls. " Helwoo? (Elmer Fudd voice) I am sooo glad you called, snort snort. Its been so lonely. They won’t let me out of my room and get to a phone snort snort anymore. It is so nice to hear your lovely voice, snort snort. I have missed you soo much snort snort.

Can you believe they call me and then hand up? The nerve!!!

I answer “City morgue, you stab um, we slab em.” They often apolgize for missing dialing.

At least it was possible to shoot door-to-door salespeople.

When my wife gets spam calls, here in Ecuador, she turns the phone over to me, and I talk to them in either English or French and tell them that I don’t understand Spanish.

I’ve also asked (in Spanish) if they spoke Chinese. When they said no, I’d say “Neither do I” and hang up.

RoboKiller. Worth its weight in gold.

I don’t care what your robot is selling. If he isn’t R2-D2 I’m hanging up.

I do too, at least you could get a few laughs out of pimping the spam caller. Robocalls take all the fun out of it, they are simply an annoyance with no benefit whatsoever.

My favorite is when I get a call and answer it, and it takes two or three hellos before anyone answers. Then I tell them they’d do better if they were there when the called party answered, and hang up. What I miss most are the old desk phone receivers you could slam down with a satisfactory bang!

You can’t mess with a robo-call! :-(

The US is felonizing robo-calls. Not sure how that’s gonna work with calls from Bangladesh.

If I get an unidentified call, I don’t answer. They don’t leave a message. I hide my caller ID and call them back. If they answer the call I play a song from my Music collection. They usually don’t call back.

I like getting one of their sales associates on the line and keeping them going for several minutes before I inform him he has reached the local CIA Tele-Fraud Detection Division. THEN, click from the other end.

I don’t answer when I don’t recognize the number. But some of the voicemails I’ve received have been rather interesting. According to one robocaller, I owe the IRS and had better call them with my SSAN immediately or face arrest. Another says I need to call about my overdue student loan, which is interesting as I’ve never had a student loan or ever applied for one. Finally, my Chase bankcard has been suspended, which is also interesting as I’ve never had a Chase bankcard. Well, I’m still waiting on that IRS arrest warrant.

This is the first time I’ve seen the subject discussed without someone leaping to the defense of poor telemarketers and their inalienable right to disturb your supper with offers you don’t want…

If it says “please do not hang up the phone” I hang up.