THE RUMORS OF MY DEMISE.

He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend - provided, of course, that he really is dead.    
There seems to be a rumor out there that I have passed, I know this for a fact because I am the one spreading it. 

Since I signed up for the so-called: ‘DO NOT CALL LIST' the calls to my residence and cell phone have risen dramatically, somewhat akin to being Jewish and running through the Middle East with a target on my back and the words: SHOOT ME, I'M JEWISH.

In the course of my ordinary day, especially at 3:00 pm and later the calls start coming in. I have wanted to have fun with these calls to avenge the nerve of the caller for disturbing me, to amuse myself on an otherwise slow day, or to try out new ways to aggravate people to the point of suicide.

Unknown, Anonymous and Private Caller are all fair-game for my actions of levity and also disdain. I can answer them with a civil ‘Hello" or a rather gruff and angry tone. The later sets the mood for the caller to decide whether to say ‘Hello' or just hang up before engaging me.

I used to get the same call every afternoon around 2:00 pm from the New York Times. The same caller would ask me to subscribe to their paper. After about two weeks of this incessant calling, I decided to tell them what. The calls started with:

 "Good afternoon, may I speak with Joseph? Is this Joseph?"

"Yes, I'm Joseph."

"How are you today, Joseph?"

"Well, if the truth is known, the doctor told me I have only a few more weeks to live!"

"Have a nice day, Joseph."

I never heard from them again.

Since then I have improved my techniques with other ways to annoy or scare off the sales calls.

One day I got a call from a salesman asking for me, with caller I.D. I knew this was going nowhere for him.

"Hello?"

"Hi, this is Custom Vacations, is this the breadwinner of the house?"

"No, do you want to speak with him?"

"Please"

"Hang on, I'll get him."

I call out: Hey Jerry, phone call for you!" I then say: "He'll be with you in just a moment. After half an hour I go back to the unanswered phone and hang it up. I do two things with this madness: 1) I tie up the phone for half an hour and no stupid calls 2) it frustrates the caller who is waiting for someone to come to the phone.

On the rise is an avalanche of calls from diabetic supply companies, banks, and home improvement companies. They think I have nothing else to do but answer their phone called sales pitches. One such call came in one day with:

"HaLoa, may hi speek with de diabetic of da house?"

"I'm sorry, she died yesterday."

"Hokay, have a nice afternoon!

And so, it will go, new calls on new days with the need for new responses, so little time and so many calls to answer.