Last night I received one of those annoying sales calls. This was the conversation:


Sales Person: Hello, my name is Dan. This is not a sales call. I just want to ask you a few questions. Do you consider yourself the primary grocery shopper of the house?

Me: What is this all about?

Sales Person: Grocery shopping.

Me: Sorry, I'm not interested in answering your questions.

Sales Person: Well I'm not interested in asking them.

Then he hung up on me!!!! I laughed for five minutes straight!!!!

I am the lucky one who will have the summer off with you! (Well at least I will be working only part time from home for 12 weeks or so!) This is child number 2 for us and we are due May 31st

YAY Jennifer! Congratulations! You are due about 2 weeks ahead of me (June 13.) Cool, I was really curious as to who it might be. 12 weeks, I am really jealous. I'll be getting about 8.

A friend of mine was telling me about a recent call from a telemarketer. My friend answers the phone and the telemarketer starts going through his little script. My friend asks him, "Do you have a closet in your house?" The telemarketer, a little puzzled, finally says, "Yes". My friend responds, "Well, hang this up in it" and then hangs up the phone!

(Rant)
TELEMARKETERS!!!!
I hate them
The phone starts as soon as I walk in the door and continues into the night
What's up with that??!!

I have 2 kids, a boy (age 12, probably won't be making it to 13) and a girl (age 6 going on 28). This is a typical conversation you can look forward to:

As we are watching Entertainment Tonight, my daughter asks "Mom, why is JLo on this show every night."
"I don't know sweetheart, why do you ask?" "Well, I really like her music but honestly (she gets that from the brother) she needs to put some clothes on!"

I laughed so hard I had tears running down my face. If I had a choice of being an extremely well paid (ha.) compliance officer and having six kids, I would definitely choose the kids. As a matter of fact, I'll probably go home tonight and try to talk my husband into another one...

There is a wonderful possibility that I will be joining you ladies with the summer off! I've been approved to adopt and, if all goes well, should become a 1st time Mom this summer!

Good Luck, that is so wonderful I hope all goes well for you Louvera. I will be keeping my fingers crossed for you!

Maybe after all the birth's...we can all go fishing and have a big "BOL" beach bash with seafood, Crown and plenty of beers!!

I know this sounds crazy (alternative language for Rant Warning), but----I wish they would pass a law that went like this:
When a telemarketer calls, the first thing that they have to tell you is where they got your name from, and the second thing they would have to do is ask you if you want to be on the national do not call list. Then it should be their responsibility to make sure that you are on every list that you need to be. Make it their problem instead of ours.

When they tell me where they got my info., I can tell that company how unhappy I am and I can choose to not do business with them in the future.

Oh the teenage years
What a joy
I survived

Congratulations, Louvera! I hope all goes well. And Jennifer and exgovtbabe - enjoy your time off and the new little miracles!

These 5 day weeks are rough, aren't they! The thing that's kept me smiling the last couple of days is someone's post (can't remember whose) that said something about passing mustard.

In reply to:

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Oh the teenage years
What a joy
I survived

---

Lucky you. I am in the big fat middle of it with two teens at home - and a future one (he's still only 7). My Dad laughs every time I complain about something they have done, or their attitudes. He says the best thing is watching your former teenagers have teens of their own!

Mine really are good kids, but they do have their moments!

I don't know if this qualifies as Friday Frivolty, but...

For those of you who were so gracious and kind as to help me with the dilemma of having my son disclipined for changing the desktop settings on a school computer (see thread under technology - Deleting Files), I just got back from my conference with the principal. The result was that there was no evidence that he had done this and the principal ripped up the discipline report in front of us. I'm going to celebrate tonight!

Just to let everyone know - I do fish. My husband and I are avid Walleye fishermen and compete in tournaments. I, along with my partner, took first place in a women's tournament a few years ago on Fort Peck Lake in Montana. There's nothing like having a big fish on the hook, reeling it in, taking a few pictures and releasing it.

Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Bill Gates are on the same plane and it crashes, killing them all. As they ascend into heaven God, while sitting on his throne asks Bill Clinton what he believes in. Bill Clinton says, "Government is for the people and no one should tell someone else what to do."...God says that's pretty good come sit to my right. Then he asks the same question to Al Gore. He says, "I believe that we use too much fosil fuels and should try to protect the ozone layer."....God says that sound pretty good too, come sit to my left. Finally, God asks Bill Gates what he believes....Bill Gates says, "I believe you are in my seat."

How true
and believe it or not that's what got me through it
I come froma abig family 6 of us
and I thinkof what we put my parents through 6 fold
So what i had to go through w/ only 2 wasn;t so bad
The things I did alone...Oh My...

Those of us with teenagers could probably write a book of ideas to pass on to you parents of "young ones". Last night at Bunco I relayed the story about the time I took the door off my daughter's room because she would stomp up the stairs and slam it....had everyone taking notes...

I too dislike telemarketers, but here's a story with a twist.

We receive so many telemarketer calls even my 4 year old daughter was making wise cracks about "those people who call all the time." Well last summer before leaving the house on a weeks vacation we we're delayed by a telemarketer who would not let me politely get off the phone. When I finally did get to the car and my family asked what had taken so long everyone joined in immediately bashing telemarketers when I told them what had happened. About 10 minutes after the verbal bashing ended the following true news story was aired on the radio.

A young man went hiking in the mountains somewhere in South America. He was an experienced hiker, but this trip he went alone. He wasn't too worried because he was not going into any treacherous country even though it was a very long trek. He was also comforted because he had a cell phone. After several days of hiking far from civilization an unexpected blizzard caught him by surprise. He found a crevice in some big rocks for shelter and dug through his pack for the cell phone. When he dialed a number for help he received a message that his phone plan had expired and his phone was unusable until he visited the nearest office for reactivation. Apparantly he laid out there mostly exposed to the elements and finally had decided he was going to die there. All of a sudden his phone rang, when he answered it was a telemarketer calling to encourage him to visit the phone company and reactivate his service. He of course told his dilima to the telemarketer who of course did not believe such an outlandish story. But after 30 minutes or so he convinced them to contact the authorities. The military of the country he was in did eventually rescue him some hours later. The radio reporter said he fully recovered and looked up the telemarketer after returning stateside.

My facts are probably not exactly right, but I do remember the story pretty well since it is so strange. This is the only positive story I have ever heard about telemarketers.

Friday haiku:

The standard form is
Not acceptable this time
Please submit 6A

Everybody have a good weekend! Three and half hours until that first martini!

Brian

Just be glad you don't have 6 kids with only 7 years between them. My mom had *5* teenagers at once for a couple of years.

BINGO. You are the winner.

On a thread related note, do telemarketers have a Web board where they bad mouth compliance officers?

I usually find myself the odd one out, but I've loved my kid's teenage years (most of the time). I have an angel child off at college and a 17 yr old trouble maker at home about to convince me I don't enjoy the teenage years AT ALL, but anyway one of the really fun things is listening to this 17 year old when he gets telemarketers on the line. He'll either listen and lead them on, or if they're in a hurry just flat out lie about my not being home. I don't answer the phone any more because up until my daughter left home in the fall it was never for me anyway - actually it's still not!

I have a two teenage girls, 13 and 15, at home and I don't even try to answer the phones and they are pro's at screening for and getting rid of telemarketers.

I remember seeing a saying somewhere something to the effect that parents of teenagers understand why some animals eat their young.

I had to relay this one. When my son was 13 years old his voice had changed. He had a telemarketer call one day. Jared listened to his story and then told him 'Well I don't know. I'm just a child. You might want to call back when my mother gets home'. Wish I could have been there to hear that one.

Sorry you all, but I'm lucky now. Indiana has a no-call list and I've probably only received 3 calls over the past year. It's amazing!