The Call

 I answer the phone. This may not sound like a big deal, but it does defy certain aspects of our modern culture. Things like caller ID, and Do Not Disturb, and this fancy bit of software that our phone provider put on our line that recognizes robocalls and shuts them down after one ring. And there is the tried and true response of simply ignoring the various electronic substitutes for a telephone's "ring." I do not react well to this strategy. The second ring sets off an alert that straightens my spine, and by the third ring I have become anxious about just who made it through the gauntlet we have prepared and the fourth ring sees me on my feet, reaching for the receiver. Must. Not. Go. To. Voice. Mail!

All this effort and stress is inevitably paid off in telemarketing. Or scams. There have been rare occasions when no one in our household recognized the number of an old friend who was calling out of the blue to reconnect. I picked those up. On a few occasions, I have been the savior for a family member who was calling from an unknown number because circumstances would not allow them to use their regularly identified code. Thank goodness I was there to pick up, or they might have been stranded wherever holding on to whatever for who knows how long. 

Yes. I am suggesting that answering the phone makes me a hero.

It also makes me a victim. As mentioned earlier, there is a preponderance of instances in which being the one who answers connects me to someone who has something to sell or lie about. Or both. Which turns out to be fine with me. I am someone who tends to delight in the free-flowing exchange of ideas, even if those ideas are focused on buying that new home warranty from a person who I don't know from a company of which I have never heard. To date, I have never purchased anything over the phone, but I enjoy a good sales pitch, and what's more, I take subversive delight in giving the appearance of having interest in what they are selling. These interactions are quite often a battle of patience, to see who will give up first. And when it comes to scams, I am always pleased when I am the one who hears the click on the other end of the line. 

But first, I feel it is my duty to keep the offending party on the line long enough that they will be thwarted from making another call as quickly as their robo-fingers will allow. I want them to feel that I am truly worried about the order I placed for the newest iPhone on Amazon. I didn't make the order, unless somehow I have forgotten it in the flurry of things that fill up my busy day. It is possible that I made that order, and this helpful person called me from "Amazon" just to check up on me and to ensure that all goes according to plan. If that plan includes me handing over my credit card information to make certain that this order that I may or may not have made goes through. Which is where asking a lot of unnecessary questions comes in. "Are you calling from Seattle, or the Amazon branch office in Des Moines?" "Can you update my Prime membership as long as I have you on the line?" "How much are they paying you?" The capper is usually, "How do you sleep at night?" 

I know times are tough, but in the middle of a global pandemic, it seems that victimizing others via one of the few connections we can safely maintain is aberrant behavior. To the extreme. Cut off from those we love and care for, that telephone ring is the outside world reminding us that it's still there. "Hello, stranger. Thank you for calling. I am lonely and look forward to any and all distractions that may take me away from the endless hellscape of quarantine." 

I'll keep answering the phone. Not because I'm a hero. 

Because I'm lonely.