Call me anytime you want

Dinnertime the other night, I'm eating, the phone rings. I arise in mid-spaghetti-slurp, disrupting my valuable family time, if "valuable family time" is defined as my parents steadily talking and me steadily turning up the volume to The Simpsons. I pick up, and who could it be on the other end but a telemarketer from the phone company. A telemarketer. Let me tell you what I think of telemarketers.

I love them.

I cannot, in fact, get enough of them. These people are calling me up and offering me money just to switch phone companies. I say, don't stop at interrupting dinner—intrude on breakfast and lunch, snack times, dessert! What could be better than AT&T and Sprint begging me to take their money for saying the word yes? They pay me so they can perform a service for my benefit. It's legal, reversed bribery, and I like it.

I couldn't care less about the local plan or the long-distance plan or whether I can hear the person on the other end; I don't mind if the customer service operator speaks in satanic tongues.

"You're giving me 50 bucks? For doing nothing? Sign me up."

In the back of my mind, I know that when AT&T finds out I'm no longer on the list, I get another $50 opportunity. And the telemarketing cycle continues.

I'd like to see someone make a living entirely off of phone company bonuses. Never move a muscle in their whole life except to pick up the telephone. I believe it can be done. They could open up their house to tours:

"This Rolex is from the summer of 1973 when I switched providers 25 times. Over there, that's my golden toilet seat, financed by the great Sprint-BellSouth flip-flop of '89. And note the diamond ring to your left, courtesy of a slight accounting error by WorldCom."

So if anything, rather than too much telemarketing, there's too little. Television networks should call me up and fight over what sitcom to watch at 8:30 p.m. Utz and Ruffles can choose what chips I buy at the grocery store. The ultimate telemarketer, though, would work for a political party.

"Listen, Mr. Wertheim, we want to lower taxes, we want to improve healthcare, we want to reform public schools and we preach family values. Be a Republican. One hundred dollars."

"I don't know. The Democrats offered me $150 and a disposable camera."

"All right, $175."

"Can you go over the logic of your economic plan again?"

"$500."

Until then, however, the phone companies' money must suffice. Thankfully, this shouldn't be much of a challenge, especially given my new realization. Because I keep a phone company for a day and then move on, I've determined, it's almost not worth the company's time to go through the process with me. Next time they call, I'm going to tell them:

"Just continue to deposit $50 into my account each week, but this time, don't even bother to provide me with your service. Relax; don't trouble yourself. Just keep giving me money for no reason, and that would be great."

And if for some reason they have a problem with any of this, I believe they know where to reach me.