HUSHIE-UPPIE!!!

I have finally mastered the art of blowing off telemarketers, bill collectors, salesmen and Jehovah’s Witnesses in the nicest way possible. I’ve always been the type of person to get reeled in and on countless occasions I’ve been held hostage by all of the above.

I could never bring myself to get rid of them in the quickest way possible for fear of hurting their feelings. Unlike my father-in-law who takes rudeness to an awesome level. Jehovah’s witnesses would come to his door and he’d scream at them saying “I told you people to stop bothering me!” then would slam the door in their poor faces. Real nice pops! That actually brings back some bad childhood memories. Wait a minute, I need a moment in my happy place.


Okay I’m better.
Anyhow, I’ve been working myself up to the best and easiest way to get these people to step off. :0) Nicely~

For telemarketers and bill collectors I like to entertain myself by getting them to hang up on me. I answer the phone in my most childlike voice (which for me is not a huge stretch) and I say “I’m sorry my Mommy and Daddy aren’t home right now, do you want to talk to my turtle? Why? He wants to talk to you. But he’s going to cry! I’m telling my Daddy! What’s your name and telephone number? Are you a pedophile? Have you seen Dateline?” They end up hanging up on me! Works every time and it usually stops repeat calls.
I love it!

Sometimes I’ll get a really overzealous or rude person who calls, (you know the obnoxious personality who just won’t allow you to hang up or won’t take no for an answer?) I’ll let them think I’m interested, quietly set the phone down and let them run their spiel. I could nip it in the bud, but because they are so hyper-motivated, I feel sorry for them.

Sometimes it seems that some of these sales people might get some sort of credit for just the right amount of dialog they pop off. They ramble on and on at a 100 words per second. If they cram it all in maybe their victim might happen to be a speed listener and will have a change of heart instead of feeling highly annoyed. I don’t like to let those personalities down. I might ruin their day. Waste their valuable time by interrupting every few seconds by quickly spitting out “no thank you”, “I’m sorry but I’m not interested”, “I’m not allowed to make the decisions in my house, trust me I'll be beaten”, “using your product is against my religion”; So I just let them do their thing, meanwhile, I put the phone down and walk off to do mine.

I think it’s nice of me! Okay it’s a little mean but it beats getting upset, slamming the phone down and feeling bad about it later.

I’d been snowed the year before by a very fast talking door to door salesgirl who wouldn’t take “I HAVE NO MONEY AND I MAY LOSE MY HOUSE NEXT MONTH” for an answer. Even after, “WE HAVE NO FOOD THIS WEEK!” she just kept going on even though I kept saying "no".

Then my girls came over and she roped them in: “let me ask you girls something, wouldn't you use these educational products to help you get better grades? They are really cool computer programs that are more like fun games”. She stooped to the worst level! I was outside gardening and therefore didn’t have a door to slam. Not that I would have even if I had access to one, but I wanted to in the worst way. (In my mind it was a Scrubs scene where I day-dreamt that I slammed the door in her face a 100 times). Anyhow the girls said “oh yeah, we could definitely benefit from those!”
“See they can really use them” she said. I should have told the girls, “Oh you can definitely use them? Okay good, all you need to do is pay the nice lady $80.00 cash. Instead I felt like a major heel and the worst parent in the world. (wow, heel was a serious grandpa word wasn't it?).
$80.00 + 12 weeks later when the cds arrived, we looked through them and found that they were basically complete sloth-crap, so now the cds are used as an expensive dust trap.

I’m going to illustrate for you below, my favorite new thing to do to door/door salespeople. I tried it the other day and it worked like a charm! This guy was ridiculous! He was a “college kid” selling the very same educational material as the salesgirl the previous year.


Salesman: Hi, do you have a moment to take a look at some educational products for your children?

Me: Thanks but I bought the very same products last year and we were really disappointed with the quality.

Salesman: Well can you just take a look to see some of our new products? They’re new this year.

Me: No thank you, really we weren’t happy, and your products aren’t exactly inexpensive.

Salesman: Can you just look for a second, my boss says I have to show you this.

Me: Nope. Won’t do it and you can’t make me!
(For a second there I thought he might hit me.)

Salesman: Just look at this one page *flips open book to a page*
*then looks up to see me holding my hands over my eyes and plugging my ears with my thumbs while singing la la la la la, not looking and not listening to you~ la la la~* He ended up laughing and finally left! See, we both got a good laugh instead of feeling bad and my wallet was spared.

Sheez, some of these poor starving souls need a brick house to fall on them. I don’t use the same sales tactics and my bank account reflects it. I just don’t have the personality for that. Don’t get me wrong I can be obnoxious and annoying but only towards my friends and family. It’s why I’ve decided to start the nursing program where I can actually help people and feel needed.