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Posted Dec 5-2014
Big Jim Williams' latest books are...
CATTLE DRIVE, about a desperate 1873 cattle drive in the heat of summer, now available from Amazon, Barns & Noble, and many other online book sources in print and as e-books. Chapters of my on-going series, JAKE SILVERHORN'S REVENGE, set in Arizona following the U. S. Civil War, are also available.
Also have yarns and stories in the new print and e-book anthologies, THE KILLER WORE CHANBERRY: A FOURTH MEAL OF MAYHEM (Untreed Read), BROKEN PROMISES (La Frontera Press), and, IN VINO VERITAS (Thirteen Press, United Kingdom).
Hope you give them a read. I welcome all comments at my email address: bigjimwilliams2@cox.net
"Why I Hate Telemarketers”
By Big Jim Williams
Author, CATTLE DRIVE (High Noon Press) &
JAKE SILVERHORN'S REVENGE series (H. N. Press)
I hate telemarketers!
Who doesn’t?
They’re about as popular as teenage acne on prom night.
Telemarketers constantly interrupt my writing when I’m about to create a line that will make my novel an overnight classic, such as, “Heathcliff pressed his feverish lips to—-“
Then the phone rings. I pick it up and hear a recorded voice say, “Your credit cards are--”
Click!
I hang up.
I’m on a “do not call” list. But it doesn’t matter. I also get telemarketing calls on my cell phone. Won’t these pests ever leave me alone?
I return to my computer. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, I was writing about Healthcliff as he was about to “...press his feverish lips to...”
Ring! Ring!
Another interruption.
“Hello,” I answer, still trying to be polite.
“This is not a sales call...” lies the recorded disembodied phone voice.
Click! I curse and hang up as my rage builds.
Back again to Heathcliff’s feverish lips.
But it always takes several minutes to remember what I was writing and where I wanted to take the storyline of my great American novel, which, I believe, will sell millions if I add lots of steamy sex.
Ring! Ring!
Oh, God, not again.
Poor Heathcliff is never gonna kiss anyone.
I pick up the phone, and shout, “Hello, Hello.” No one is there. The line is as dead as a week-old glass of beer. Probably just another telemarketer who dialed and then decided to take his coffee break.
Sometimes, when receiving telemarketing calls, I think I hear voices in the back ground, voices I believe are plotting to call again as soon as Heathcliff puckers his lips, which, probably by now, are forever puckered in place and chapped.
Then:
Ring! Ring!
I answer and hear, “You’re now eligible to receive at no cost a free personal medical alert system--“
Click.
Then minutes later.
Ring! Ring!
“Don’t hang up, this is not a sales call,” claimed another recorded voice.
I hang up.
A friend patiently listens through a telemarketer’s long spiel and then asks to speak to the supervisor. When the head honcho comes to the phone—-thinking he’s going to make a big sale—-my friend releases every expletive known to mankind, including new one’s he plans to copyright.
The calls never stop, especially during ones nap time, dinner, or when watching a favorite TV show.
All telemarketers should be gagged and tied to railroad tracks. However, my idea of hell for telemarketers would be to chain them to a bank of telephones that would ring only whenever they tried to sleep.
I know I can get a bunch of telemarketing-hating volunteers to call them 24/7, an endless string of sleep-interrupting loud phone calls continuing through all eternity.
They don’t call me “Mr. Nice Guy” for nothing.
But what about Heathcliff? I return to my great American novel. He’s probably still puckered up and looking for Chapstick to ease the pain of his sandpaper lips. And did he ever get a chance to kiss the girl?
Ring! Ring!
I’ll answer those questions just as soon as I answer another call from a damned telemarketer.
Hmm. I think I’ll answer and put him on hold.
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