Phoney funny phone calls

 Am I too old for pranking…..

Not when my targets are those pesky pirates of the telephone.  No, they don’t threaten my life, but they do threaten my money.  Once upon a time, back in the day, you could answer your telephone with confidence, not so today.  Okay, so I don’t get many phone calls these days, but when the phone rings there is generally somebody on board that I want to speak to or need to speak to. But not always the case!!  On many occasions, I am greeted with a phony enquiry into my health, and a try at prying my identify from me   However, it is said that laughter is the best  medicine, and so here are some pranks I play on these villains, when I use their calls as a major source of entertainment. 

Firstly, when they ask " Am I speaking with so and so?". I always rebound with "Who is calling?"  This seems to throw them a little bit off balance and they don't get to ask me how I am, as if they cared!!

 So, here are some of my ways of dealing with these jackals trying to consume any part of my virtual life that they can get their virtual fangs into.

When I am feeling bright, I go into my "Italian" mode.  I speak to them in my limited and, no doubt, broken Italian.  After they get sick of my heavily accented "Do you speak Italian?" routine and my chatting, they generally give up, and I don't get calls for a while from this centre.

 Then, there are the calls allegedly from Microsoft. "Can I speak to the owner of the computer? There is something wrong with it". At this, my answer is that the owner is dead. This generally elicits a moment of silence and expressions of sympathy. However, one cheeky chappie had the gall to ask me who had the computer now, so I told him I had buried it with my husband. End of story. No more calls at the moment

The easiest one is to just ask the person to hold the line, and then put the phone down for five minutes or so. This generally gives them the message.

So, don't be angry, get even and have a laugh on them.