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I swear this is true.
As the date grows closer for the national do-not-call list to take effect, I have received more and more calls from telephone solicitors at home - as many as four per night.
Either these marketing companies are getting particularly desperate, or they have it in for me personally.
Whatever have I done?
Okay, so I tend to slam down the phone on the solicitor.
But only after I have had to say hello repeatedly into the phone's dead silence and when the solicitor finally speaks, he mispronounces my name.
Then I growl that, whatever they're selling, I'm not interested. Not in vacation giveaways, charities I have never heard of, polls conducted on behalf of ambitious politicians who are plotting their ascension while my dinner burns on the stove.
I know I ought to be nicer, but I can't help it. I don't let strangers into my living room by way of the front door. Why should I let them in by way of the kitchen phone?
Still, I have slammed down the phone often enough that I've begun to feel guilty about it. The solicitors, after all, are just trying to make a living, following a script, talking into a headset. So many of them - thousands, perhaps - are here in the bay area. I could be accused of not supporting my neighbors.
I certainly wouldn't want that.
It's got to be hard work. This is not a job for somebody with self-esteem issues. You have to deal with people like me, so many strangers who have never laid eyes on you yet don't like you. Millions have put their dislike on record. They've signed up for the national do-not-call list.
It's too bad we lack this passion for weightier issues - global warming, the flight of American jobs overseas, the national debt. What a country we'd have.
Instead, we reserve our passion for the local and the irksome, so much passion that no less than 50-million numbers are now on the phone list.
A figure like that works wonders when you're in the business of always trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing. So Congress is on board. Same with the president and the Federal Communications Commission, which plans to begin enforcing the list Wednesday even while its legality will be thrashed out in court.
The telemarketers contend that using the list violates their right to free speech under the First Amendment. But don't those of us on the list have a right under some amendment or other to be protected against nasty violations of our domestic tranquility at day's end?
The telemarketers apparently appreciate the fact that they have an awful public relations problem. One of their trade groups has asked its members to obey the wishes of those of us on the list while the court cases are pending. How thoughtful.
Even if the do-not-call list survives, the problem of unwanted phone solicitors won't be entirely solved. Calls from charities, businesses you've already had dealings with, pollsters and, lucky us, politicians would still be permitted. But that's just 20 percent of the headache. An 80 percent solution is better than none.
The problem will then be all those phone solicitors suddenly not having a lot to do. Our idea of domestic tranquility is their idea of unemployment.
No one has asked, but I'd recommend retraining the phone solicitors in computers and putting them to work on getting the spam out of everybody's PCs. Just think. No more Viagra ads. No more offers for videos you don't want your children to see. The end of offers for mortgages when you don't need one and aren't looking for one.
All of it would be gone, gone, gone. That wouldn't be a job. I'd call it public service.
- You can reach Mary Jo Melone at mjmelone@sptimes.com or 813226-3402.