Do Not Call Does Not Work

In an attempt to cut down on sales calls, I have done a couple of things.

The first is to have us listed in the phone book under the name of our cat. (Actually, it's the cat we had when we got that number, but which has since died. Anyway...) Yes, we really are listed under the cat's name. That way, I can tell people how to look us up, but if we get a call saying, "May I speak to Mr. or Mrs. Fluffy?" I know it is a sales call and tell them they have the wrong number and hang up.

The other is that I have put us on the "Do Not Call" registry. It hasn't helped much.

We still get the computer generated "we want to sell you insurance/lower your interest rate/get you to come to our store" calls. We still get the calls from charities where less than half the money goes to the charity, most of it goes to the people raising the money for the charity.

I will admit we haven't gotten the ones about selling us siding (cladding in some parts of the world) for the house in a while. Maybe they got the message that a brick home doesn't need it.

Still, we get too many calls we don't want, and my kids have a tendency to grab the phone first and look at the caller ID later.

One solution, besides just hanging up, is to say, "Wow, this sounds great! Let me go get my spouse on the extension to you can talk to both of us!" Then set the phone down and leave it off the hook for half an hour.

I have not been brave enough to try it yet, but I am close.

Any other suggestions for what to do when "Do Not Call" does not work?



Today is:

Feast of Apollo

Feast of La'Ala'A, French Polynesia, Samoa (honors Upolu, god of wrestling)

National Bagels and Lox Day

National DAV (Develop Alternative Vices) Day - in hopes that bad habits will be altered to positive coping mechanisms

National Hooky Day

National Inventor's Day

Read in the Bathtub Day

St. Apollonia's Day (patron against toothaches)

Tales of Kelp-Koli begin -- Fairy Calendar

Toothache Day (And someone thought this needed a day because...? Okay, I guess because there is a patron saint for it. Or against it. However that works.)

USBC National Bowling Championships begin, through the 14th


Birthdays Today:

David Gallagher, 1985
Ziyi Zhang, 1979
Travis Tritt, 1963
Charles Shaughnessy, 1955
Mia Farrow, 1945
Alice Walker, 1944
Joe Pesci, 1943
Carole King, 1942
Roger Mudd, 1928
Brendan Behan, 1923
Kathryn Grayson, 1922
Gypsy Rose Lee, 1914
Ernest Tubb, 1914
Carmen Miranda, 1909
Ronald Colman, 1891
Amy Lowell, 1874
William Henry Harrison, 1773


Today in History:

The Synod of Breslau orders Jews of Silesia to wear special caps, 1267
The first recorded race meet in England in Roodee Fields, Chester, 1540
The British ex-premier Walpole becomes the Earl of Oxford, 1742
The first Japanese immigrants arrive in Hawaii, 1885
The first forestry school is incorporated at Kent, Ohio, 1909
Snow falls on Mauna Loa, Hawaii, 1922