Under Siege: The Telephone Demons

LOOK. Let me preamble this post with two salient facts about myself.

One, I am *not a morning person*. My late husband was, with a vengeance, which sometimes made me SNARL at him in early mornings when he was so bright eyed and bushy tailed and I was still trying to wake up. He used to rise at something stupid o’clock and work at his computer for HOURS while I still slept peacefully, and then he’d bring me my morning coffee when I did wake up, and then we’d talk about… but I digress. I miss him. Even at his worst early morning gleeful self. But the the point is, I am the kind of person who would rather stay up until 4 AM then wake up then. If I have to get up early to go on a trip, for instance, it’s an unwelcome chore and I tend to be a grumpy traveller if I DO have to do that; only oceans of coffee help. Times of day like 6 or even 7 in the morning don’t fill me with joy. Stick a pin in that for a moment.

Two, I am a certified introvert who has never really liked phone conversations, and even less so phone conversations with people I *do not know*. I am also a solitary creature these days, and few people I DO know phone me. I also do not pick up calls from numbers I don’t recognise, or that don’t identify themselves in the Caller ID field – I let them go to voice mail, and if they are legit and really need to talk to me then they can leave a message and I’ll call them back. Okay, stick a pin in that too and now pull both those pins out because we come to the meat of the matter.

I don’t know what list my phone number is on or who sold or who bought it, but I’ve been BESIEGED by multiple random phone calls which only identify themselves by a geographical location (mostly places I’ve never heard of in Washington state, and therefore don’t know anyone from there at all who would be calling me, but I’ve seen CO and WY identifiers too…) They don’t come with an area code, which would be essential for a call back from me. They go to voice mail and they never EVER leave any messages at all. I get ten of these a DAY on a bad day. And on a very very VERY bad day… they start at six in the morning, *waking me up*.

I don’t know what I can do about this, if anything, but I am seriously considering basically unplugging my landline (which is where these things arrive) completely, and plugging it in only when I need a phone. Which kind of kills the idea of having a phone line (and paying for it…) at all. But seriously… waking me up out of a deep sleep for what amounts to a PRANK CALL is starting to wear on my last nerve. I actually picked up the phone for one of these to yell and use very unladylike language at whoever is there but there was only silence on the other end so even that release is not available to me.These really are telephone demons.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.