Crank Phone Calls From Jerks

 

Oh, heck.   Last month I sent a letter to the editor and after it posted to the online newspaper I started getting crank phone calls.   Some have been hang up calls, other one's were cryptic BS from someone sounding female, and the best one yet began was a digital robo-call saying that the price of electricity would be going up and that I was being offered a forty percent discount, "press 'one' to speak with a representative."   I pressed 'one,' and a real person, probably female, came on the line and  mumbled something or other.  I asked, "Are you offering me a forty percent discount?"    "No," she said, "F___ you, you piece of  s___"   I said thanks and hung up.

The letter was about the problem in social politics.   People have become immune to reason, and insanely aggressive.   Too, free and open analysis of presidential politics has become a ghost.  Certain people have been 'cancelling' anything running contrary to their singular point of view.   I wrote the letter out of frustration with what has become a barrier to free speech and expression.   It was stupid to bother trying to pitch the concept of centrism, and stupider to use '45' and what happened 2015 through now to illustrate that people may be combatting the best courses of action out of partisanship.   People used to like debating politics.  Now they take whatever position their comrades are taking, whomever their comrades are.   I wonder who or what is calling the shots.   Millions of people can't all be getting the exact same information and directives from thin air.

Crank phone calls are a pain in the butt, so I stopped answering the phone when it rings, and let the answering machine take it from there.   Not that I'm going to do it, since normal decent people might be calling for a real reason, I've been thinking up humorous messages to leave on the machine, in case crank callers have a sense of humor.  They usually don't.  Some of them think they do, but they are delusional.  

"This is Bruce's dog," one might begin.  "Bruce is a caring wonderful person, and he's been getting crank phone calls from heartless, sick, animal abusers.   If you are one of these pigs, I'll have you know Bruce suffered an aneurism because of what you've been doing, you idiot, and he is unable to get to the store and buy me food, so I'm starving, and it's your fault, you scumbag.  Please leave a message at the beep."