Well what did you THINK was going to happen
Last night the phone rings. Believe it or not this is a rare occurrence in my house. When the phone rings three things happen. First we are startled by the strange ringing noise. Then we look to one another to decide who is going to walk over to the phone. Third we look at the caller ID and decide whether or not to pick up.
Last night at 8:30pm I lost the coin toss, and I walked over to the phone. The ID said, "Unknown Number". An unknown number at 8:30pm on a Sunday night could only mean adventure. I picked it up immediately. After a series of Hello's and a couple of "Is this a recordings", someone finally came onto the phone. She spoke yankie, and she claimed to be an MCI employee calling on behalf of a police charity, and she called me on a Sunday night at 8:30pm.
She deserves what she gets. When she asked how I was I told her "I'm eating cake", this was almost true, I had been trying to eat a piece of cake for the past ten minutes but one thing after another kept me from it, and I was losing patience.
Her con went the usual way, police charitable organization, blah, blah, blah. Keeping criminals off the streets, blah, blah, blah. Arrest drug dealers selling drugs to children, blah, blah, blah. Then she gets around to the "bind", the part of the pitch where they actually ask you for money in a way where if you say anything but "Yes" you are forced to lie or answer in an awkward way. for instance, "You do want to keep drugs out of the hands of children by locking up the criminals that sell them don't you?"
The muse was upon me. My response, "I'm afraid that would be a conflict of interest ma'am." This throws her for a loop, but she takes the bait anyway, "And why would that be a conflict of interest?" :) She DID ask. My response, "Because I sell drugs. My primary market is middle school children and I just can't see giving money to an organization striving to not only put me out of a well paying job, but put me in jail as well."
There was an uncomfortable silence, followed by a nervous laugh, followed by a "Well, ok then, thank you for your time."
When we stopped laughing, Sara says to me, "If that was a legitimate charity we might be getting an official visit later."
Well, if they do come to take me away, I'd better make sure I have all the cake I can eat first. I eat my piece of cake, and in fact the rest of the cake entirely. 19 hours later my stomach still feels like I ate an entire yankie con artist. I'm going to have to avoid answering the phone for a couple of weeks, or at the very least until I feel like eating again.
