I live in a Super Tuesday state and despite being on the state and federal "No-Call" lists I am swamped with political phone calls. Politicians exempted themselves from the "No-Call" laws, you see.

It does make for some instersting moments. Yesterday, a politician that I despise called to implore me to vote against a presidential candidate I was considering voting for. He asked me to vote for another candidate I was considering instead.

Maybe I will flip a coin, but I will be glad when Tuesday evening comes and this part of the election process is done.

TG

P.S. I love my wonderful wife and we have the perfect relationship, except.....

There are a some things you can do about your phone.

1. Let all of your friends and relatives know that you will only be answering your cell phone and e-mail for the next few days. Then turn off the ringer of your home phone. Check messages on Wednesday, deleting as you go.

2. If someone starts a spiel as soon as you answer, sob and say, "He's dead, you bastards! Stop calling us." Then hang up.

3. Pick up the phone, and before they say anything say, "The number you have reached is not in service at this time. Please check your local directory and try your call again." Then hang up. (Try and channel Lily Tomlin. You'd be amazed at the number of people that fall for this.)

4. Have a woman answer the phone and say, "I don't know where he is! He left a note about Atlantic City and Bambi! If you see him, shoot him on sight!"

5. Don't do anything. Pick up the phone, then drop it back in the cradle. (Yes, I know no one has phones with cradles any more. You get the idea.)

Now. Head down to your favorite jeweler and purchase a shiny obect for your wife. She deserves a reward, don't you think?

LOL, i like # 2 !  BA also had some good ideas of how to retaliate against unwanted calls, gleaned from her years working as a telemarketer (which she is still doing, God forgive her).

I like to pretend my hearing aid is on the fritz.

"Eh ? Sorry sonny, you'll have to shout louder. You want a boat for who ? Osama ? Why do we wanna buy him a boat ? Ain't that gonna help him get away ?"

Dump the land phone. One less bill to pay.

That's what answering machines and/or caller ID is for. We screen all our calls. If they don't leave a message, it wasn't important. If they start on a spiel for a candidate, charity, or anything else we aren't interested in, we hit "Stop" on the answering machine.

Rain:

Dump the land phone. One less bill to pay.

My land line makes my DSL cheaper. We use pre-paid cell phones, total maybe $20 or so per month between us, so we come out ahead. Besides, I usually have to call myself to find my cell phone!

This one is my favourite (sorry BA if I did this to you):

Remember that telemarketters get paid by the number of calls they put through as well as the number of sales they make. Political callers not so much, but just think about how many others they could be bothering instead of talking at you.

What to do?

1) Pick up the phone and let them start their spiel.

2) Now, carefully set the phone down on the table and go do something else.

If they don't realize that you are not listening, they may go on for 5 or even 10 minutes before hanging up. If they call back, just go to step 1 and start over.

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As an alternative, practice your childlike voice and tell them that your mom and dad are in the bedroom making the bed squeek.

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Last month I got calls from some travel agency and would I like to fly to figi/bali/thailand for "FREE" (had to buy some useless product to get this trip). They called every day for two weeks. I started with "I'm not interested" followed by hanging up. After the third call, I tried the child routine, and they still called back. Finally, I just set the phone down and waited for them to hang up (the tone that the phone company uses to remind you to hang up is loud enough to hear from across the room).

They stopped calling me.

Hillary Clinton left me a message today. I haven't heard from Obama or Huckaby or McCain or Romney. Yet.

Personally, I like the "deaf" routine, especially if it is an obscene call. Some idiot from Oregon called me a couple weeks ago to tell me some obscene secret or another. I just hung up; I was too busy to listen to him.

Hilary, herself? Wow! You rate, dude!

No matter who calls me, I usually say, I don't live here, I'm visiting from Praque! I usually anwer with "ello?" Czechs don't usually pronounce H's. Then I tell them "I don't vote here! I don't have citizenship, but I tell my cousin Vaclav to vote you." Usually they say "uh, we'll call back some other time".

That's better than "No hablo englais..."

I don't want to deal with "las Migra"

tonto_goldberg:

That's better than "No hablo englais..."

That doesn't help in Texas, especially in the southern half.

Caller ID, baby. I never answer a phone without it. If I don't recognize the number and I'm not expecting an unusual call, I pick up the handset and place it immediately back in the cradle. If it's an 800 number, same thing. Anyone who really needs to call me has my cell phone as well and can reach me that way, if necessary. Failing that, email is the way to go.

Me, I hate answering machines and refuse to use one. And I resent people who get angry at me (yes, it happens) for not having one, as if I have a responsibility to provide one for their convenience. If I don't want to talk to you, I don't want to hear you on the machine, either.

When I was still a snotty teenager, my standard responses were to tell the caller that my parents were Communists (if it was a political call) or Druids (if it was a religious organization.) The Druid excuse also worked pretty well for getting rid of Jehovah's Witnesses and the like.

So now we are snotty adults and we still hate political and religious phone calls, huh? I know I am.

I always wanted to keep some random pamphlets by the door and offer to trade with whatever religious person was banging on my door, but I live in the sticks and they don't come here. I always thought something from the Cooperative Extension Service like "Saving Energy with Weatherstripping" would make a good trade.

As an old fogey adult, I've lost some of the urge to mess with people's heads. I'm thinking of working on trying to get it back.

I've also probably just fallen back on using "F*** off" as my response for everything.