Dial-A-Story with HG Zinc

Once upon a time there was a maaaaagical spell called the Telephone Protection Service. The TPS was a spell you could cast upon yourself so that the evil phone goblins wouldn't ring you all hours of the day and night trying to sell you things you couldn't afford and didn't want. The people of the land were happy with TPS and there was much rejoicing as the peasantry got to have a proper bath without having their souls tarnished by idiots trying to sell them double-glazing.


However, the forces of chaos and corruption were merely biding their time, for the only force powerful enough to cast such a spell over the phone goblins was the Diabolical Wizard of Marr-Ket'ng, who had been granted the Runes of Self-Regulation by the Mad Blind God Gob-m'nt. In exchange for the Runes, the wizard had to agree to cast the spell of TPS so that some pretence of fairness be observed. However, the Diabolical Wizard was a very clever sort and forged a weakness in the spell, based on the ritual of "Marr-Ket research". Phone Goblins conducting the ritual of Marr-Ket research would be allowed fair passage through the TPS barrier and would be able to bother the peasantfolk for "purposes of Marr-Ket Research" only.

Thus did the Phone Goblins plan their attack across the wards of the TPS. They would repeatedly bother people all day long with their autodiallers and whenever a stout yeoman was fool enough to answer their call, they would claim not to be selling anything at all and would merely ask innocent-sounding questions of their victims instead.

If their victims were weak and gave forth their information, the phone Goblins would summon forth their terrible "partners", the Orcs and Trolls of Khom-urz, who would batter through the barricades using the hex of "prior contact" and attempt to get you to buy their miserable wares of misery. A brave knight might briefly fend them off with the incantation of TPS, but the evil monsters would just add you to their call-back list and ensure you got called at really awkward times using the magical principle of most annoyance.

Is there a happy ending to this tale?  Not if you don't count the adrenaline rush you get from yelling at some sod in a Mumbai callcentre (overseas-based callcentres are another excellent way of minimizing the risks of violating TPS) for calling you six times a day even though you've made it clear in a polite-but-firm way that you won't be answering their questions, but that doesn't work as an avoidance tactic as they already hate you and yelling at them just makes them hate you more and add your number to the call-back list so all their colleagues can have a go at hating you.

Today I tried a different tack. False information.  I channelled my inner powers of confabulation, honed by years of games-mastering on the RPG circuit, and basically made up a happy little story about a man who doesn't have my name, date of birth or postcode; who doesn't have a mobile phone; whose vision is 20/20 so doesn't need special laser vision offers from Optical Express; who doesn't have broadband or a computer at all and most definitely doesn't want one; no television either, so stop asking. No, no loans with or without payment protection insurance. No, didn't have any in the past either. I may have stepped over the line by claiming to consider insurance a form of gambling and not wanting to have anything to do with it (thanks, Neddy), but I was really hitting my stride. No, no debts so don't want debt counselling. No, I don't want free SIMs because I don't have a mobile phone. Still don't have a computer, so I can't give you my email address. No, you can't have your "selected partners" send me text messages as I don't have a mobile phone, remember? No, they can't contact me on this phone number as I'm on TPS and I never ever conduct business with new companies over the phone...

This went on for over three quarters of an hour.

Some may query how I can possibly justify wasting so much time, when it speaks for itself:

• My time is cheap. Cheaper, even, than that of some outsourced callcentre drone.
• Because I'm a spiteful little chap.
• Because after a lifetime under the whips and scourges of sales and marketing, it's only fair I take a big old steaming poo on their precious marketing databases.
• Because when they're talking to me, they're not bothering someone else. 

All the other unemployed people of this country should make a point of wasting as much cold-caller's time as possible, as it would provide a valuable national service and the taxpayers would be much more well-disposed towards us.