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Personal Perspectives
Please...Don't Hang Up!
It's all about the extended warranty.
Posted June 21, 2021 Reviewed by Kaja Perina
Please Don't Hang Up!
Her voice was cool and mechanical. I hung up. Didn’t even say hello. I knew she wanted me to pay for an extended warranty on my thirteen-year-old Honda Civic.
Even after I sold the car, she kept calling.
Bless her heart.
Landlines...The Ties That Bind
I keep a landline at my office for my internet service. I recently changed my phone/internet service and opted for a new unlisted phone number while I was at it. I had long ago forgotten my original landline number. I never used it and never gave it to anyone for any reason. Getting an unlisted number seemed like a possible solution to unwanted scams and solicitations.
They Will Find You
Even though I no longer knew my old landline number, many people did…all of them overly concerned folks who didn’t want me to hang up. They called because they wanted to sell me an extended warranty for my aging car.
My office phone would ring six to ten times a day with such calls. I got very adept at picking up the phone and clicking it off with my thumb, without bothering to listen to the message or losing my train of thought. It’s important to always be working on expanding your skill set.
When I switched internet services and requested a private number, I felt like I had just won the phone solicitation game with a slam dunk from the three-point line.
The quiet honeymoon of no landline calls lasted a little more than a month. Then one morning, the landline rang. I was so surprised I picked up the phone and said hello.
Big mistake. The calls began pouring in with a vengeance. They’d found me again and, as before, I’d pick them up and click them off like a pro, but that didn’t stop the calls from coming. In fact, the solicitations became ever more persistent. They were on to my hang-up skills and turned up the volume on their end so the initial Please don’t hang up! could be heard at arms-length.
Hang Up!
A couple days ago, the phone rang with the usual plea to Please don’t hang up! Then just before I could mash on that button and hang up, the mechanical woman added a new twist. She told me she was calling from a secure location and that, in fact, I really should hang up IMMEDIATELY and vacate my office because I was in danger.
In danger of what, I never found out. I just hung up and kept working.
I’m here to tell you that all is well. I’m safe. Nothing happened other than I finished editing the story I was writing, and miracle of miracles, the phone hasn’t rung since.
I’m hoping that last call was one of those Mission Impossible kind of things where the message self-destructs after 30 seconds and there’s a bit of a sizzle on the line, then silence.
I can only hope.
