Sunday, May 8, 2022

ON AIRHORNS

We had one particular guy call us every week, then several times a week always asking to talk to the lady of the house about making a donation to the police benevolent fund. He would call me at all hours of the day and it was always the same. As you can imagine I grew tired of him and told him to stop, but the little devil was deceitful and caller ID doesn't work when the caller can transmit a faux ID number. I took it about as well as any retired Engineer would and bought a couple of air horns. I needed one for the 3rd floor and one for the first floor. he would call and ask, "Is X there?" Boom. Horn in the ear. He was determined. He still called a couple of times a week with the same question and the same response. There is that wonderfull bit in Good Omens where the Dukes of Hell are sent down a phone line to one of those call rooms and turn all of them into weevils. It resonates.

4 comments:

boron said...

At least he's speaking English. I get calls, sometimes two/three a day, in rapid-fire Spanish; I don't even understand what they're asking for, but thanks, I'm goin' out right now to purchase a couple o' those horns.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget, they have your phone number and you don't have theirs. With your phone number they can find out lots about you. Also good to remember that these calls couldn't continue without the phone company selling us out. We have a land line that we just use to call out and never answer it. It's helped.

capt fast said...

turn the ringer off and let the answer machine catch it. robo call systems recognize the answer machine and quickly terminate the call.
on a different note, the horn idea is good, but the landline handset systems only allow 85db sound pressure at the receiver end. the loudest thing you would hear on a landline system is the dial tone.

Heywood5150 said...

Great minds think alike. My dad had an airhorn sitting by the phone too.
I used to hand the phone to my then 5 year old anytime I got those calls. He just loved talking on the phone. They would all try to "get mommy or daddy on the phone" but, nope...wasn't gonna happen.