I wrote a few weeks ago about how our consumer culture and the greed of corporations are huge problems when one is facing a family tragedy.
I am currently dealing with my mother's leukemia and my father's degenerative neurological disease, and when I am able to be at my own house for a day or two, with a caregiver watching over them, I have a rare chance to relax, catch up on laundry, watch a little television, and write.
The one thing that interrupts that brief respite is a ringing phone. I am always somewhat on alert, aware that anything can happen at any time with either one of them, and so a phone call often signals a crisis and the need to get in my car and go to my parents' house. If it turns out that the call is a telemarketer, or someone else wanting something from me, my stress response doesn't immediately go back to normal. It takes a while to calm down.
So I do not look kindly on telemarketers, political calls, or solicitations for charities. I have an unlisted number, but that doesn't seem to matter. People not only call, they address me by name. How is that possible?
What these people don't stop to think about are all the people like me who have come to dread a ringing phone. There are others who have trouble walking or getting up and who are physically inconvenienced when the phone rings.
In my mind, people who are willing to use the phone to annoy the people they call just to get some money for something, no matter how deserving the cause, are inconsiderate and rude.
I don't have caller ID on my phone, which I suppose I should get, but I would still have to get up when the phone rings in order to check who the caller is, unless I carry the phone with me everywhere I go. And I would still have that alarm response everytime it rings. For now, I can't afford to ignore the phone in case it is my mother or the caregiver.
I have come to hate the telephone and my only recourse is to hang up instantly on anyone who is not a family member or a doctor. I don't care how rude it is.
Courtesy is something that went out the window long ago in this country. People who want your money don't care one whit if they inconvenience you, or frighten you, or cause you stress. So I feel no guilt at all about being rude myself.
Maybe if we all treated unwanted calls this way, they would stop.
