It’s worth being married just for this.

I ‘ate telemarketers.

We’re on the list, we have the stickers, we’ve got the call display.  Short of getting one of those gizmojiggities that automatically disconnect the calls, we’ve pretty much done all we can do.

But every once in a while, you still get a call from “Mkt Probe Canada” and you know, you know you don’t want to take it.

But then they call back.  And call back again.  And call back again.  A few times an evening, for many (many) evenings in a row.  And I say boo.

And eventually I answer.

MKT PROBE:  “Hello, is {husband’s name} there please?”

Me:  “Who is calling please?”

MKT PROBE:  “I’m calling regarding a customer satisfaction survey.”

Me:  “I see, and which company is this with?”

MKT PROBE: “{stammer} Due to {stammer} confidentiality, I cannot reveal that to anyone but {husband’s name}”.

Me: “Ah, well this is HIS WIFE and he won’t be participating in the survey.  Good night.”  {click}

In a household that is almost wholly phone-averse, I am still the one more likely to answer.  Which means it is often me fielding the random calls.  For the many years when we were together but sans labels, I used to trip up in trying to shake them off the line (like so many coke monkeys).  “This is his… partner” just doesn’t have the same BAMness to it.  You could try lying, but as professional liars themselves, they have finely honed detectors, and just push harder.

But “wife”?  Wife has definitiveness.  Wife is the steel-toed boot of phone calls.  You want him, you’re going through me.  All those nasty associations with ‘wife’ have to come in handy sometime.  And apparently that sometime is with telemarketing.

MKT PROBE: “Oop, we’ve got an angry curlers-wearing slipper-totin’ wife* on line 3, abort! abort!”

I do not wish to participate in your customer satisfaction survey, and I hereby tick off the box where I agree to risk the dire, irreversible repercussions this will have on the good service you so desperately want to provide me.

I may be the market, but I reserve the right not to be probed.

* While I do not wear curlers, I have toted some fierce slippers in my day.