Candy Hearts on Valentine’s Day and Telemarketers

Well the day that strikes fear into the hearts of men and make women dream
of rose petals has come and gone.

I know that not everyone enjoys the holiday but even when I was single and
alone, I enjoyed it as I could always use the day to thank my friends by
giving them candy hearts, you know the kind made by Necco. Yum.

Is the day heavily marketed? Yep however I see the day as a perfect
marketing day. Take for example the telemarketing call I received at 8am
yesterday. It was a group that wanted to send me and my Valentine to
Branson, Missouri. (I’d rather take her to Florida.) Course they neglected
to say that we would actually have to pay for the trip, not them. Darn. I
politely reminded the person that it was rather inappropriate for them to be
calling on Valentine’s Day and try to use it to market a trip that they make
sound free but its really not. Course while the person was apologizing
profusely, I used the time to do a call trace on the number… And what do
you know, it was coming from a company that has offices 2.5 miles away from
my place. So I got sneaky, I feigned interest to see if they were reading
from a script (and they were). I think I shocked them when I asked how they
knew so much about the trip and resort and everything else when the call was
coming from Norman, Oklahoma. I explained to the person that my number was
on the national and state wide do-not-call lists and had been on there since
September of 2004. They said they would take the number off of their lists.
I thanked them, wished them a good day, and not to call back again.

Well I guess someone didn’t get the memo as later in the day after I got out
of class, the phone rang again and low and behold it was coming from the
same company, they just changed their dialing out number, how sneaky of
them. Course this time they goofed big time as they called my cellphone.
Oops! Better call the FCC as I have them on speeddial. I let the person
talk as they would not let me get in a word after I answered the phone (I
thought it was my date calling that she got lost coming to my place). When
the dolt on the other end finally stopped talking to breath, I said, "Ma’am,
you’ve called a personal line and you’ve interupted me while I was doing some
important work (I was cooking dinner). How would you like it if I called
you at work while you were busy doing something important? The woman went
off talking again so I waited till she shut her jaws…again. So I said,
"Ma’am, I wish to talk to your manager as you’ve called a prohibited number
that is not to be receiving telemarketing calls and she protested that I
didn’t know what I was talking about. But she got quiet really quick when I
said that she had called my cellphone and that I have her company’s outgoing
number logged (It was reporting back to the same company that had called me
earlier in the day). I said that I was going to forward this information to
the FCC and file a writ of complaint against her employer for violated FCC
regulations. No less than ten seconds after having said that, the manager
gets on the line and apologizes with a very heavy hand. When I told him
that I’ve had problems with the company in the past calling my cellphone and
that this was the last straw and that I would take the company to court for
harassment and disruption of my cell phone service. Everytime they call my
cellphone, my access fees go from $5/month to $15 everytime I get a
telemarketing call (Yes you get punished for receiving calls from 1-800
numbers and the like unless its from your provider). I think he must have
had a heart attack after he pulled up some records, which showed that they
actually had a prior history of calling my cell phone and my provider suing
their pants off in my defense. Hopefully this is the last time as if it
happens again, I will truly sue them.

I would talk about my Valentine’s Day this year except I don’t have much to
say here. I had a wonderful evening with my date and we made plans to do
something this weekend, probably a movie and popcorn (Mom, Chris and I have
yet to put a dent in that can you gave us) at my place. I cooked her dinner
and not only did she love it, the plate was clean. She made a comment about
how I could teach someone she knows how to cook. We watched Abyss, the
special edition. I made her night special and that is what counts the most
in my book, making people smile from ear to ear. My friend, Karin, set us
up and I have to say she made a good choice. Atleast I survived the
questioning from her friends this afternoon. The Inquisition was rather
painless, probably no worse than the prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay
(Ladies, I’m joking here, you all weren’t that cruel. The only thing that
hurts are my sides from laughing so much).

Matt