Speech to Entertain; 101 Ways to Annoy a Telemarketer

101 Ways to Annoy a Telemarketer

It’s Saturday night. Your mom has made a beautiful dinner of lasagna with your favorite bread. You pour yourself a glass of ice tea and go and sit at the well laid out table and just as you are about to take your first bite... the phone rings. You sigh and get up to answer the phone. You pick it up and answer the phone without looking at the number. Only later do you realize your terrible mistake. You just answered the pone to find the greatest, most horrible fear on the other end of the phone. It is a TELEMARKETER.
Now, there are three typical reactions that can happen. You could either: 1. Hang up. 2. Listen patiently and fall into their trap and buy whatever they are trying to sell you or 3. (my personal favorite) Annoy them.
Now, since the telemarketers disturbed your dinner, you don’t have to feel guilty about making them freaked out, weirded out or completely terrified.
Annoying telemarketers, contrary to popular belief, is an art that takes much practice to completely perfect. Lucky for you, you have a master for a teacher.
There are many different ways to annoy a telemarketer, but there are several that surpass all others on the “Annoy-O-Meter.”
Now, if you want to get rid of them quickly, one way to successfully confuse them is to tell them that you’re “not home right now, but can take a message.” Not only will it confuse them, it will get rid of them quickly. Another way to get rid of them quickly is to pretend to be the answering machine. This particular one takes more practice to get that robotic voice down, but once you do, it works like a charm.
If your patience happens to be short, you can simple tell them to hang on a minute, I’ll be right back and simply leave them there.
But I know that you don’t want to get rid of them quickly, no, no, no. They have already interrupted your perfect dinner, you might as well enjoy yourself.
For the more theatrical of you out there, you can really have fun with this next one. A very popular way to freak out the person that ruined your dinner is to ask them to marry you. The conversation would go something like this:
“Hello, I’m with the United Duck Control Peoples Company and I would just like to ask you a few questions.”
“You like ducks! So do I!!!”
“Yes, anyway...”
“We must be made for each other! Will you marry me?”
After that, there will either be a long awkward silence that you could fill with wedding plans and meeting the parents or they will stutter awkwardly and you can tell them that you are nervous too and that you will “see you later honey pookie face!” But, you have to remember not to laugh, otherwise you will completely blow it, so practice it a few times.
If you are anything like me, no matter how many times you practice it, you will never be able to stop giggling, so there are many other options to torture your victim.
If they start off with “How are you today?” you can reply by telling them the most depressing life story you can muster. For practice you can listen to some country songs. Telling them that your dog died can usually make them sympathetic and then just go from there. Your wife/husband has left you and has taken your convertible along with all the kids and ramble on and on. This will usually get them off track and make them feel sorry for you. Plus they probably won’t call again.
Or, if you happen to have a crossword puzzle nearby, you can ask them to help with your crossword puzzle and see how many calls it takes to finish the puzzle. It is productive and a fun game. Or, if you happen to be in the middle of your homework, you can ask them to help you with the problem you are stuck on. OR, if you are one of those geniuses out there, you can just ask them to answer the next question on the sheet of paper. Either way, its a win.
I am sure that many of you have seen Elf, starring Will Ferrell as Buddy. It’s a great movie that you can quote all day long. One popular quote that is perfect for a telemarketer call is “Buddy the Elf, what’s your favorite color?” If they have seen this movie, they will probably laugh or answer and if they haven’t they will be confused and think you are insane and if there is a knock on the door and there are people with white coats on the other side, you know who to blame.
Now, another one for the theatrically minded ones out there. They call and you pick up and once they start talking, start squealing and freaking out, actually, on second thought, don’t do that if you are a guy, that’s kind of weird. Anyway, act extremely happy and then pretend that you have know them your whole life until you have moved or whatever and you haven’t heard from them in years and are “so happy to see you again!” Then start making plans for this Friday and then, after you have made plans, hang up and leave them hanging. Once you have hung up, feel free to laugh until that Friday.
One of my personal favorites is once they start talking, interrupt them and ask them to “say that again?” and “wait one more time. Uh huh. A little louder please. Uh huh. Slower. Can you spell that? Wait WHAT?” and continue until they get so annoyed that they can’t take it anymore and hang up with a frustrated sigh.
And finally, if you have used all of the others and have some time, you can always pry in their personal life.
“Hello, how are you today?”
“Oh, I’m fine. How are you?”
“Umm... good, anyway I’m with the...”
“Oh how nice! What have you been up to today? How is your mother? Good? Great. Do you have a girlfriend? What’s her name?...”
And so continue with the verbal assault until they hang up or you run out of questions.
So, once you have mastered the art of telemarketer annoyance, you will soon start to notice the telemarketing calls diminishing until every telemarketer within a fifty mile radius will be to afraid to call and you will be able to enjoy dinner in peace.