Mater

The phone rings: ‘Helloo?’ (Expecting it to be one of my daughters.)

[More:]

After a long silence, I’m about to put the phone down when a man with what I suppose to be an Indian (or could be Pakistani) accent, asks: ‘You Missis Mereditt at (my address and garbled postcode)?
Congratulations! You’ve been selected… blah blah blah’ (I couldn’t understand a word).

‘Sorry, but could I stop you there, please? Whatever it is, I’m afraid I’m not interested, but thank you.’

‘Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry??? But missis, it won’t cost you nottin. You been SELECTED! Are you a homeowner? Do you work?’

‘No thank you…’

‘Why are you wastin my time?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You are wastin my time Why are you wastin my time?’

‘He he (nervous laughter on my part), I’m not wasting your time, you’re wasting mine!’

‘You laughin at me missis? Don’t you laugh at me and waste my time - and DON’T PUT THE PHONE DOWN! I’ll ring you back if you do - and don’t waste my time.’

‘I’m not laughing at you and I’m not wasting your time; you’re wasting mine. Goodbye…’ (I hear him shout ‘Don’t put the phone down!’ But I do, anyway - and about time.)

I start telling my daughter about it, but she’d got the gist of it as she listened in, and then the phone rang again. I wasn’t going to answer it, but my daughter picked it up.

‘Hello?’

‘Why you wasting my time?’

‘We’re not. You are wasting ours. Bye.’

30 seconds later the phone went again, but as I went to disconnect it, it stopped ringing and I quickly dialled another daughter’s number. A nice, long chat with her, should do the trick. The engaged tone for best part of an hour ought to put him off. It seems to have worked, but my daughter thinks it might just be a spoof call - or ‘The Phone Jack’ (Ch 4).

If not, he should be fired with that attitude!