"Hey, does this sound like a dial tone?" *click*

A young, sexually inexperienced woman goes into the doctor's office to get advice regarding contraceptives. The doctor advises her to make her boyfriend wear a condom and to steer clear of having any unprotected vaginal or anal sex. Startled, the young woman asks: "You can get pregnant from anal sex?"; to which the doctor replies: "Of course, dear. Where do you think telemarketers come from?"

Seriously, I'm getting sick of these guys. Picture, if you will, getting ready for bed late at night: dog tired from uni, sliding beneath the covers and exhaling that satisfied breath of relief - only to suddenly hear the phone ring out like a howler monkey on a hot grill. You wonder who could be calling at this hour and, thinking it's a family emergency, rip yourself from the warm confines of semi-slumber, groggily stumble to the phone (hitting every piece of furniture on your way) and snatch up the receiver in a blind panic. There's an odd silence for a second, followed by a couple of weird blips. Then, all at once, a shrill voice calls out from the other end of the line:

"Helloo, Meestah Lennoooss! I callink to let you knooow: you eligible for fee mobire phoone!!".

Damn, I wish I knew how to swear in Hindi.... Telemarketers have always been an annoyance, but lately it's getting worse, like it's sweeps or something. They sometimes call eight times a day on the weekends and there's no way to block them as they're usually based overseas. Someone told me a while back that there's a 'codeword' - a word or phrase that legally obligates them to take you off their call list. If it exists, I'd love to know what that magical codeword is, because apparently "F**k off, you toad-oil selling prick" doesn't work....

On the positive side, however: one way I've found to cope with their constant intrusions into my life (apart from the air horn technique previously referred to) is to just have fun with them. Lead them on for 10 minutes or so, feigning interest to get their hopes up, then - at the point of sale - laugh, curse them out and hang up. It's kind of like a 'reverse prank-call' - which is pretty convenient, really. I can remember one a while back, salivating at a prospective sale:

Me: "Wow, that's sounds great! I'd love one of those!"

Him: "Really?! That's great! I can send it out to you right away! So, what's the address there?"

Me: "I'm not sure...."

Him: "What do you mean?"

Me: "Well, I don't live here.

Him: "Uh, well who does live there?"

Me: "Hell if I know. Back door was unlocked and I was just grabbing the DVD player when the phone rang...."

Another thing to do is toy with their competitiveness - see just how far they'll go to make a sale. The whole 'what's in it for me?' approach. Try and get them to bark like a dog, sing or do impressions - you have not heard funny until you've heard an Indonesian Sean Connery impression. Yes, I got one to do it, yes I still hung up on him, yes I'm a bastard.

But I mean, seriously: if they want to sell stuff over the phone, they should get a few of those 1900-number lasses on the payroll. You'd be surprised at just what a breathy, honeysuckle voice can sell - that's how I wound up with my piece-of-crap Taiwanese toaster that scalds the shit out of anything that touches it, yet remarkably leaves the bread inside it untouched. And I even bought a second one after the first one finally burst into flames and almost destroyed the bench. What can I say? I'm a sucker for a sweet voice. And an idiot.

Meh. All in all, I guess telemarketers are just something we have to live with - the price to pay for the sake of having a phone. At least until someone develops a device that can send a 10,000 volt shock through the phone lines, thin out their ranks a little....

Ah well, back to the salt mines....