On the whole, I am happy to have eliminated the vast majority of calls from people trying to sell me, say, cat insurance or $27 light bulbs.

But I used to have some fun with these calls. Here are two that I remember.

My wife answers the phone. It's some guy trying to sell some stupid product. She's annoyed, but is wired to be polite, so she sets in to wait through the seamless sales pitch until she finds the opportunity to say "No thank you." But then I pitched in from the background.

"Are you on the phone again? Who is that? WHO IS THAT??!!! Frank? FRANK??? Is that you, Frank? You callin' my wife again? Are you talkin' to Frank? Git off of that phone, woman, git me a beer, and then git over here and shave my back."

There was a pause. Then, "Uh....did I just...hear him...tell you to ...shave his back?"

My wife: "Well, yes. That's what he said."

"That's one of the worst things I've ever heard."

Unfortunately, things got the best of my wife. She began giggling and told the guy we're not interested. That was the end of the call.
She hung up and we both started howling with laughter.

I'll have you know that that woman never did shave my back.

Another occasion...

"This is Sally Airhead calling from Ajax windows and siding company. [Insert here a long, monotone, obviously scripted harangue, extolling the virtues of their double pane windows.]"

I perceive that she is almost ready to come up for air. She is. She asks me,

"Mr. Muddle, are the windows in your home single pane or double pane?"

"Um, I dunno. How would I tell?"

"Well, can you hear noises from outside when the windows are closed?"

"Um, I've never really thought about it or noticed. Hang on a second. I'll have my wife go outside and make a noise. Then I'll tell you if I can hear it."

"Certainly."

My wife is in the hall right outside the room. We give it a few seconds of silence, as if waiting for her to reach the front yard. Then she lets out a Yahoo. I say to Ms. Airhead,

"Ah, I heard that!"

"Well, then you have single pane windows. Have you ever thought of upgrading to double pane windows?"

Here, I refrain from making the obvious point that if I had never heard of them I likely had never thought about having them installed. But I go with it.

"What are they exactly?"

"Well, instead of one pane of glass, there are two. And we put insulation between the panes."

"Insulation? If the windows have insulation between the pieces of glass, how would I be able to see out into my yard?"

At this, Ms. Airhead comes to realize that she must be dealing with something less than an original thinker. She moves to a very elementary explanation designed to enlighten even the likes of me.

"Oh, well, it isn't that kind of insulation, Mr. Muddle. You can see through it. It's gas."

"GAS?????!!!!! You put GAS between the window panes???? Isn't that incredibly dangerous????"

She proceeds to a careful distinction between the stuff you put in your Buick and whatever it is that they inject into the windows. But by now, my wife, who is at my elbow, can't contain the laughter. It is contagious, so I succumb. All I can do is blurt out that we're not interested, and then hang up.

I've been wondering about this, because I am on a (yes, cheapskate) pre-paid phone, and am charged for these calls and the daily access. Since this is an emergency only phone, it can add up quickly. Could I recoup the $?

On the land line calls, interestingly enough, I got one of these calls just about a year after we HAD purchased a new vehicle, so I did what logic dictates, and asked the nice person which vehicle the expiring warranty was for.

"er...um...I'm not sure, I can't pull it up in my database"....

"Sweetheart, I know you mean well (not), but if you can't give me the information I need to make an informed decision on whether to spend my time and brain cells on this, why in the world would I want to do business with your company? Now y'all have a good day, o.k."

CLICK (and totally FUN)

Whats the deal with this anyway? I have been getting a call on this almost every other day for a while now. Why are vehicle warranty scams all of a sudden popular?

I think it is funny that the first call and every call since then has been my "2nd and final notice".

You're lucky if all you get is phone calls---I get mailings too and I know those phonies don't have any idea what vehicles I own!