Telemarketing
Tunes
by Rod Bartchy
I used to just
say ”No Thanks” to telemarketers and
hang up. On occasion, after say the third
call in six minutes regarding a great deal on
crawl space inspections, I might let loose with
some invective. It was dinner time, ok, and
the cat was eyeing my salmon.
But last month
I had a change of tune, both literally and
figuratively.
As soon as the
telemarketer got her pitch out, I launched into a
robust version of Home on the Range. When I got
to ‘a discouraging word’, she hung up.
Since then I’ve
had a lot of success with this approach. Many
of the calls are sourced overseas. How to
respond to Home on the Range is not spelled out
in their telemarketer playbook about saving me
money on my electric bill.
They’re
ready to rock if it goes to cost comparisons,
kilowatt hours, and two-year deals. But
‘where the deer and the antelope play’
leaves them baffled.
But to the
credit of some telemarketers, after a stanza of
Home on the Range, they’ll still gamely try
to get me back on point.
“Ah…yes...Mr.
Rod it is home we are talking about and we can
save you money on your electric bill.”
My last name
is virtually unpronounceable unless you’re
Swiss, so telemarketers worldwide call me Mr. Rod. They
all claim to have names like Frank, Jim, Sally or
Carol to make me feel comfortable
So now I have
a choice. Sing another stanza. Pick a
different tune, or riff off their bogus names.
“Hey Jim,
how’s the weather in Albania this morning?” or
“Carol,
is India a good place to retire?”
This too is
not in their playbook. Some will disconnect at
this point, but a brave few will persevere.
“It
is a very good place, Mr. Rod. But you do
need life insurance. Who will pay the bills
on your...um…home on the range when you are
gone?”
Good try.
Plucky even.
But when this
happens I’ll up the ante and launch into my
brother’s favorite number, Who Let the Dogs
Out.
After a couple
of stanzas, I’ll pause. They’re
usually stunned into silence at this point. Then
I’ll press on, accusingly.
“You let
the dogs out, didn’t you, Frank! Not
good!”
Some will
instinctively protest their innocence while
frantically riffling through their playbook under
dogs.
It’s the
rare one that gamely tries to use dogs to
redirect me back to their pitch.
Take the case
of ‘Sam’ from Shanghai. After the
first verse of Who Let the Dogs Out, he
melodiously returned with
“Yes,
Mr. Rod, your pets are important to you but so is
your phone bill.”
He’s good,
that one. I parried with my rap version of
MacArthur Park.
“MacArthur
Park is &%!@% melting in the dark, dog, all
that sweet green icing’s goin’ down.”
Sam came back,
not with a spiel about my phone bill, but with a
great reggae rendition of the next lyric.
“Someone
left da cake out in da rain, mon. I don’t
think, I don’t think I can take it”
Think Bob Marley with a Cantonese accent.
Game on Sam.
“Cause it
took too long to bake it” I countrify in my
soulful faux Willie Nelson tenor.
“And
I’ll never have that recipe again”
Sam did a great late career Sinatra.
Something
special was happening. We both knew it. And
the next line happened spontaneously, both of us
singing together.
“Oh
no!” Sam held the note a bit
longer than I did. A beautiful moment really.
We finished
the rest of MacArthur Park. Yellow cotton dress…Old
men playing checkers. You know the song.
I didn’t
buy into his sketchy cell phone company’s
two-year deal. He figured as much. We were
past that now. But I did invite him to call
me back anytime with his play list. We’re
buds now and on a slow night in Shanghai I’m
always available to sing the blues.
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