Go ahead and knock

Do you know what happens when you ring my doorbell early in the day and my household is still asleep? I have five cats... it's not pretty.

Think chaos and mayhem times five.

I had about 1.25 seconds to absorb the doorbell sound when I heard a mass of thundering kitty feet. Something crashed to the floor. Something large thudded against a wall - hard. Pictures fell. Glass broke. And someone screamed like a little girl (that'd be me).

And who was at the door? A pair of door-to-door gospel types in nice clothes with briefcases, they could have been insurance salespeople too but I'm guessing they're from the new church just around the corner. On an early Sunday morning, too.

Now I'm not anti-religious or anything like that and I realize they have a goal to bring new members in, meet the neighborhood, get to know peeps... I just won't open the door in my jammies early in the morning, not unless it's an emergency or a neighbor or a friend in need. Sorry, them's the House Rules. 

I'm finding that people generally just don't understand that "to solicit" means "to ask". They're asking me to open the door, they're asking me to listen - they ARE soliciting. Even if they don't sell a product, just the nature of going door-to-door and asking for anything is soliciting. I have a "no soliciting" sign and it's big.  No one sees it.  So I'm adding a new sign next to that one:

"We are illiterate, diabetic, unemployed, inarticulate, atheisists. Don't bother."

Is that too harsh? *grin*

Multi-tasking and telemarketers...

Woah... multi-tasking overload here. Listening to Creed CD (at FULL BLAST thank you very much) with the headphones on, working, uh I mean playing online and... the PHONE RINGS.

ARRRGH. Gamus interruptus.

I could see the flashing light on line 1 out of the corner of my eye, that's only how I knew it was ringing in the first place. There's NO WAY on God's green earth I coulda heard the bell ringing overtop of Creed thundering out "Torn". No way.

With my left hand, whipped off the headphones, paused the music, picked up the phone, hit line one, and put the receiver to my ear (thankfully it's one of those shoulder-rest models), all without missing a beat on my right hand with the mouse in the game. Hey, told ya I could multi-task!

But hey – that solitaire game is timed, has no pause, and I was winning, and I wanted to STAY winning. I know it's just a game... but I had a bad day and I needed to fuss around in games for a while and have some fun.

Anyhow... I barked, I mean SAID into the phone, "YEAH???" Then I cringed, hoping it wasn't a friend... or worse, my mom calling and I just yelled in her ear.

And... nothing. No response. I could hear something in the background, like a faint gurgle noise, but... nothing. I was hoping I hadn't scared whoever it was into choking.

"Hello?" I said, waiting.

*click* *click* (Gotta keep up with the game )

Just about to hang up, and I was still playing too, I hear a voice say, "Susan?"

*click* *click*

Me, annoyed at having not only my game disturbed - and my winning streak - AND my rock'n'roll session of blaring Creed interrupted, I barked, I mean SAID again: "Yeah?"

*click* *click*

Then some poor bastard, I mean phone solicitor, said something highly-accented and very unintelligible really quickly and no way could I have caught anything of what he said.

Sighing, I said, "I can't hear you, sheesh..." and hung up on whatever he was saying next. He didn't call back.

*click* *click*

Back to the game, thank God. Headphones back on, song un-paused. That's a word, right? Un-paused? Or maybe, for a cat, it'd be un-pawsed? Oh I digress again, silly tangents.

Anyhow... did I mention that the headphones were up really loud? After I hung up, I realized something: THAT'S why I couldn't hear the guy, my ears are ringing.

Woops, my bad. *snicker*

I do loathe phone solicitors. It's an unlisted number here, and usually I give them the shpiel "ThisisanunlistednumberputusonyourDo.Not.Call.EVER.List." and THEN slam the phone down. Surprised I haven't broken it yet.

The phone, not that phrase. It does cut down on calls, but still we get maybe one per week. Used to be a dozen a day. GAG me.

When I was full-time in the office, they used to give me the calls on purpose (I would ask my assistant to do that so she wasn't tied up for the other incoming lines) and so I could vent my daily frustrations on some poor unsuspecting sap that was trying to rip us off for copier supplies.

Some day I'll rant about how many things I used to tell the scammers... mostly it involved running them around in circles, hoping the Logic Police would tell them to just hang up, but no. They'd stick in there for a long, long time... five minutes at least usually - and I kept working in the background, trust me... I can really multi-task! Mostly it would start with them calling and ask what model of copier we had so they could bill us for toner they never send.

Gimme a break. We were a small company and I used to order all the supplies anyhow... so I would know if we were billed for something we didn't order. *sigh* Besides, we had a contract with our copier people - supplies included. Never had anyone call and verify our model - if they did, they were falling down on the job there. Hear that scammers? That doesn't work, don't ask for copier models, people are on to you.

Oh the good ol' days of torturing a toner scammer... now all I get is the people that say they're affiliated with the local Sheriff or firefighters or some who-haw like that.

Now if they wanted to actually send the firemen here to talk to me in person... well... I might consider that. Some of them are quite hot. *grin*