Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Election Day Rant

Today is (yet another) Election Day for our part of the state. We are voting (for the third time) for our Congressman, becuase our former Congressman for our district is now one of our Senators. Yada yada yada, blah blah blah. We had to have a special election to replace him, and over the past two months (or is it three?) we've had a gajillion elections to get where we are today. During all this time, a new development in campaigning has become extremely popular. Popular with candidates, NOT with the voting public. It's called "robo-calling," and it is sooooooooooooooooo not popular with the voting public. I can say that with authority because I am the voting public. We get no less than three calls every day, and I know some people get more.

I hate to tell whoever invented this tool of Satan that no one ever listens to the full message. Well, I say no one, but I'm sure there may be someone out there who is much kinder than I am and, just to make sure it's not a real person, they stay on the line the entire time. Here's the two most popular ways it goes at my house:

Scenario one: Ring, ring! "Hello?" -blank space for a few seconds in which I reeeeeeally should know what's coming but because I really am a nice person and really don't want to hang up on a real person- "Hello, this is Blahdy Blahdy Blah Blah calling on behalf of (insert candidate's name here)..." BEEP. That was me pushing the talk, or in this case, hang up, button.

Scenario two: Ring ring! "Hello?" -blank space that is reeeeeeeally getting on my nerves by now-"Hello, this is Aoicljvoirowoc Eeohg (I just moved my fingers across the keyboard, can you tell?) calling on..." "STOP CALLING ME AND LEAVE ME A.L.O.N.E!!" SLAM! I reallly don't slam the phone down but that got my point across better than the same BEEP that the phone makes whether I'm screaming mad at it or not.

Now, I realize that no one is hearing me on the other end. In fact, that makes me feel okay about yelling in the phone. I would NEVER do that to a real person.

When I started getting excited that today would be the end of the robo-calls, my excitement was doused by the realization that the big election doesn't happen until November.

Sigh....it's going to be a long summer.
Written by at
Labels:

3 comments:

Kat said...

I have already had 3 calls this morning (11:30). I know they are solicitation calls by the numbers coming up, but I am not absolutely sure the are Childers-Davis calls. I do not know because I pick up the phone wait a second holding it in my hand (not to my ear, I just really don't want to hear it anymore), and then I hang up. I'm so absolutely sick of the phone ringing regarding this election I could...spit. Can I say spit on the comments?

May 13, 2008 at 11:32 AM
CarlynB said...

Evidently they have given up on us over here. I haven't had a call like that in the past few days.

However, I'm such a ding-dong that I actually thought there was a real person on the other end of the line the first time I got one of these calls.

The phone rang, I said, "Hello." The voice on the line said, "Hello, this is Blankety Blank." There was a brief pause and I said, "Yes?" Then the voice went on into its spiel about whatever candidate. I felt like such a maroon!

May 13, 2008 at 11:44 AM
Kat said...

I have had 2 more call within an hour of leaving my earlier post. UGH! Shouldn't these people be somewhere outside holding up their "Vote for BLAH BLAH" signs? And whatever happened to the Do Not Call List? I guess that doesn't apply to politicians.

May 13, 2008 at 12:50 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)