Telemarketers; Pool

My little bitch about yet more people trying to cover (destroy) old songs yesterday did not result in any sort of feedback, which I have come to expect at this point. Makes me wonder if I should actually go ahead and try to write something worth reading, but, then again, that is hard. Much easier to throw out a bunch of dribble that no one ever reads than to actually take the time to write out some eloquent, poignant post that no one is ever going to read. I do pick my battles.

• So you know how the telemarketer’s call you, my stock response is, “is this a soliciting call?”, then, when pressed, the caller will admit to being the hated telemarketer. Today I happened upon a telemarketer that was alomost as smart as your average rock, of course I didn’t know that initially. The pitch was for long distance telephone service, my angle is usually to just hang up on those types of telemarketers, yet, today, I decided to fuck with him. Hilarity was the direct result.

When I answered the phone, there was a voice saying, “are you happy with your current long distance service?”. This would have been the point that I just hung up the phone most every time I get those calls, yet today I felt a bit ‘rowdy’, as it were.

Mind you, I am on the phone with this guy as we are speaking.

I asked him what company he was representing, he replied that he was representing ‘Verizon’, whom I don’t think actually offer home service in the first place. Yet, after watching a bit of ‘Crank Yankers’ last night, I just wanted to fuck with him.

His next question was, “are you happy with your current telephone provider?” Now, what I told him was both a blatant lie, and proof that I was fucking with him. I told him that I didn’t even have a telephone at home (while I was talking to him on it), because they had de-regulated some of the home service, my phone was one that got de-regulated, which caused my rates to triple and I just had it disconnected.

Well the guy seemed to be feeling sorry for me, and offered to transfer me to their wireless sales department, as they don’t offer local service in my area, so that I would at least have a phone of some sort. So, yes, the guy was as dumb as a rock. He did seem to catch on though. While I made him hold to answer call waiting he hung up on me. I sure hope that at some point while he was holding he realized what a complete idiot he was, that thought makes me smile.

That was one of the first times that I have ever decided to go ahead and fuck with a telemarketer, as such it was a pretty short experience. I am thinking now that I might try to do it once in a while just to see how long I can keep them on the phone, and how outrageous the stories I can get them to believe can get. They are the ones that are bothering me, after all, so making them look like complete idiots seems to be a pretty fair exchange. Trust me when I say that if I do this, as a scientific research project of course, you will be the first to hear the results.


It is Saturday, October 9, 2004

The last post got cut short, a bit abrubptly, when I asked the wife if she would like to go shoot a game of pool at the (remaining) local bar. We went ahead and walked on down there (drinking and driving is always a bad idea, even if it is only a few blocks) to find the place packed. Yet, strangely, there was no one around one of the three pool tables, I asked everyone near the table if there was someone with ‘ownership’ of the table (if you have never played pool in an arena where there are a lot of drunk men, you really need to find this out before attempting to drop your quarters into the thing. Men, especially when horribly drunk, can be a little bit less than understanding when you try to breach the etiquitte of ‘pool table ownership’.), but nope, it was ours to use as we pleased.

I had consumed a beverage or two (a lot of beer) before we went down there in the first place, and while I find that the beer does calm the nerves a bit (in small doses), it seems that I might have dosed myself a bit too much to play pool well that night. Of course we only do it for fun, so that is kind of the point.

I have a kind of ‘double-bell curve’ thing working when I play pool. I can not play worth a damn when I am stone sober, that is related to the fact that I am very shaky most of the time. Before you go trying to blame that on the consumption of alcohol, or lack thereof, let me state that I have had this problem since I was in my early teens and had never tasted that sweet nectar. Once my hands stop shaking, (enough of the alcohol depressant to slow my nervous system) I can play pretty well most of the time. I was, unfortunately, already past that portion of the newly created ‘double-bell curve’ at this point, yet not into the fourth part of the it. The third point of the ‘double-bell curve’ is that point when I am actually drunk and can’t hit a damn thing. Once again, and again unfortunately, I can not skirt the edges of that zone to get the pool prowess from the next zone. The final zone, in the ‘double-bell curve’ is absolute incoherence. That is when my pool is pretty much at it’s best. It is much easier to make the shot when you see three of every ball, and three pockets to get them into, and since they are all the same ball, and all the same pockets, all you have to do is sink it.

Last night’s pool play was dominated by my inability to make simple shots (indicative of the first or third levels of the double-bell curve), but ended with me playing pool with a man, whom I had never met, that wanted to “win” the table from me. At that point I was not able to hit the ocean with a rock, and wanted to just let him take the table, of course he would have none of it. Damn, those (we) drunkards do have our values. I did eventually lose that game, which was not much of a “throwing” of the match, since I couldn’t make a damn shot to start with. It did allow my wife and I to hobble home though, and I say hobble because I am pretty sure that walking kind of implies that you are on an invisible track, while hobbling could take you from curb to curb.

• This thought will be taken up in a future post.

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