Block This Caller

I doubt that I'm the only one who's noticed that the volume of spam phone calls has increased during pandemic. I guess the spammers think the general population is more susceptible to falling for their ruses? Unfortunately, that's probably true.  I cannot begin to articulate how this infuriates me. Who are these people? Or these robots? More importantly, do they really have car warranties to save us from certain bankruptcy?

I've been blocking spam callers for years. Seriously, how many phone numbers are available in this universe? Block two, and five more show up. I have an advantage . . . the area code for my cellphone does not match the one where I live. So I immediately know that the phone call is NOT from someone in my home county. And so, I don't answer. And then I jump through the hoops necessary to BLOCK THIS CALLER. I think I could do it in my sleep. But I've noticed of late that spammers are now able to text their evil, and those are a bit more confusing to block. (BTW, does anyone else get text messages addressed to "Antoinette" as I do? WTF?) Oh, and raise your hand if you've gotten a spam call FROM YOUR OWN NUMBER! Next election, I will vote for the candidate who presents a plan for eliminating spam!

The other day, I got a voicemail telling me that a new iPhone12 had been purchased on my account and was being mailed to an address in Tennessee. My guess is that the spammers are counting on recipients to contact them to dispute this, and then somehow, they would get credit card info from the person who'd been spammed. So effing clever.

But wait! There's more! While I'm on a rant, can we just quit with the surveys regarding recent purchases?  I recently got one from Staples, asking "How did you like your cyan ink cartridge?" Seriously? This is ridiculous! It's a friggin' ink cartridge! Am I supposed to award it five stars for being what it's supposed to be? But the bigger question here is this: who actually answers these surveys? And who actually reads them? I will confess, once I did respond to a survey regarding a purchase I'd made (again, from Staples), stating my disappointment with the product. Do you think I heard back from them with an apology? An offer to replace the order? No. Crickets.

And while I'm on a roll here, let me just offer my two cents about commercials. When I was in high school, I took a course in "Advertising Arts." I wanted to go to art school and work on Madison Avenue in advertising! (Confession: I became addicted to the Mad Men series a few years ago, so maybe there was still a residual fascination with the field of advertising.) These days, I watch very little television, but enough that I've had to suffer through some of the worst advertising ever. Those people that get off on the smell of their laundered clothes annoy the hell out of me. But local advertising is the worst. These people may be talented in cleaning out your gutters or changing your oil or performing your colonoscopy, but they are NOT talented in performing in front of the camera to hawk their talents. Am I right? And please, someone explain to me what a guy in a yellow shirt with a pet emu has to do with Liberty? Who in hell came up with "Limu Emu and Doug" for selling insurance? Okay, so the Aflec Duck was somewhat lame, although I actually didn't mind the Geico Gecko. (I liked his accent.) But I will be grateful when that annoying emu and his equally annoying partner, Doug, have been deposited into the trash bin of has-been advertising icons. I ask in earnest: When there's a need to purchase insurance, does anyone actually think, "I want the one with the emu in the yellow shirt!" OMG, what have we become?

(Don't answer that.)