“Don’t hang up. This is not a sales
call. Are you suffer—”
The only thing I was suffering from was the
inability to complete an afternoon nap without some telemarketer interrupting
me.
This country
used to stand for something. Our people used to stand for something. We took
pride in our work. When did we become a nation of people who don’t care?
What I’m
talking about, of course, is pick-up lines. Pick-up lines today leaves a person
with no choice but to hang up.
How many
times can a person cold-call me and ask if I’m suffering from chronic pain and
not expect me to answer, “The only pain I’m suffering from is a pain in the ass
about four times a week from someone like you asking me if I’m suffering from
chronic pain,” after which I brashly hang up.
How many
times must I be reminded that the warranty on my 2003 Tribute has expired?
Hell, yes, it’s expired. It expired in 2005.
How many
times must Bridget from card services call to inform me that, no there isn’t
anything wrong with my credit, but yes I might be paying too much interest on
my credit card debt, which apparently she doesn’t know doesn’t exist.
Bridget has
no credibility. Sometimes it’s Bridget from Cincinnati. Sometimes it’s Bridget
from Des Moines. Sometimes it’s Bridget from Paducah.
I keep
getting these calls with the same worn-out, meaningless opening lines. As young
men, hell, as high school boys, we learn that pick-up lines are useless at best
and lame ones are actually damaging to one’s reputation—unless you’re living in
a war zone.
The last
time pick-up lines worked on me was when I was serving in Vietnam. Whenever a
Vietnamese girl wearing hip American-styled clothes, enough make-up to put Mona
Lisa to shame, and calling herself, Linda, might have approached me on Tu Do
Street, smiled and uttered the words, “Hey, G.I., you look lonely. You looking
for girl friend?”
My answer, unless an M.P. was standing within
listening range was always, “Yes. Yes. I am. How did you know?” We’d then go
inside the bar and I’d spend the last of my monopoly money on endless drinks. Hers
was a pick-up line I couldn’t refuse.
However, my
living room is not a war zone. The sofa I’m lying on is not a bunker. Most of
all, I’m not falling for a pick-up line that begins with, “Don’t hang up.”
Really!
“Don’t hang up” is how you expect to keep me on the line.
I used to be
a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman. I’m not bragging, but I will say, it
was harder than being stationed in Vietnam. I wasn’t a particularly good salesman,
but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. In many ways, I wasn’t much
different than today’s telemarketer. I arrived unannounced, probably at a bad
time and selling a product most people already had and didn’t need.
There was
one difference between me and today’s intruder. I was working a whole lot
harder. I wasn’t running down a list of names. I was walking a neighborhood of
houses. Slamming the door in my face was still an option just as slamming the
phone down is today, but as a salesman and not a telemarketer, I think I brought
a little more to the table.
