Unavailable

To my son Tommy,

The phone rang while I was feeding you dinner.  I scrambled to find one of our phones (your mother has a tendency not to return them to their base) and right before I answered, I looked at the caller ID.  It simply said unavailable.   We don't have any bill collectors out for us or any of that so it was bound to be a call that would break the joke of legislation that they called the "Do Not Call Registry"  In that moment, I could feel myself tensing for a fight, almost looking forward to yelling at the telemarketer on the other side.  In an instant I played it through my mind, hoping for a real person on the other end to rip a new one.  In that very second that I saw the ID, my entire morality was being washed away by a future event that hadn't even happened yet.  Then I did something that I would not have done before.  I didn't answer it.  I remembered that I had a choice and I refused to give up power on my attitude to some jerk telemarketer or worse yet robocall.  If they were going to be unavailable then by george so was I.  It used to be one of my favorite hobbies to verbally abuse some telemarketer and I used to extract such pleasure from such nastiness.  I am not sure if I have grown up or just gotten tired but from here on out I will not waste my time or my effort to tell some cold call salesman that he is lower than worm poop.  I will no longer report the phone number to the do not call registry in the naive hope that someone actual will do something.  Now if I could just block these suckers from getting through our receptionists and to my phone at work.  There they say they are calling on "behalf of" someone and I stop them and ask them for a direct phone number to call them back and when they balk I tell them they are a sham and a scam if they don't have a number I can return their phone call for.  It ruins my mood for about an hour and happens at least seven times a week.  I need to solve that at work but for now I will have to revel in my little victory of my will power to not answer the phone at home.

Always remember, only you can give someone the opportunity to ruin your day.  You also have the power to take that opportunity away.  Whether it is choosing not to answer the phone, or choosing to hang up, or by walking away as you say "I would stay and listen to this but I just remembered that I have legs."  you should always realize you usually have the control of the situation.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo