(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)
Greetings to the concerned readers who noticed my absence during the past few weeks.
An unexpected stay in hospital and some up-close and personal experience with the pointy end of a scalpel were to blame.
After being paroled from hospital, I spent a week clearing a gazillion spam e-mails from my inbox.
Listen up spammers: I don’t need any herbal viagra, I have no desire to increase the size of my “package” and I certainly don’t want to meet hot women living in my area.
Besides, if they’re in my area they’re probably feeling a tad chilly right now.
Having a week or two at home recuperating made me a sitting duck when it comes to the other form of spam, telemarketing.
Ugh, is there anything more aggravating? I don’t totally object to phone surveys and will very occasionally answer the question if the caller isn’t bugging me at an inopportune time. Like a weekend. Or a meal time. Or when I can’t be bothered.
However, if it’s a “give me money” call, you’re out of luck. I refuse to donate to any charity that feels it has the right to annoy me in my own home.
The same goes for any company trying to sell me something by this method. I tell them this before I hang up on them.
The lastest telephonic junk was from someone representing Slingshot and wanting to know if I’d be interested in saving money on my phone bill. When I said I was happy with my current provider I was told that they weren’t trying to sell me anything.
Really? So you just called for a bit of a chat then, did you? I think not.
At least I didn’t get any spam phonecalls while I was in hospital.