Did they really want to phone me?

After a recent cold I now have a sinus infection and I'm taking some really strong antibiotics that are making me feel woogy and easily distracted. So when I kept getting a call on my cell phone from a 1-866 number (which I don't answer as a rule - its' just someone selling something) I dropped what I was doing and went for a little explore time.

There are a few services that come up when you google a "reverse phone number lookup" and they will tell you who keeps calling from a specific number. For a price, anyway - the free versions couldn't find the number. I'm not that annoyed.

So I googled on the phone number itself and found a wonderful forum where people were complaining about phone calls from this phone number! It was Fido phoning it's customers back in March 2007 and charging them for the calls if they were out of the country.

Just then, my cell phone rang.

So I answered it. Eventually the call centre agent came on and I talked to her for a bit. She promised it was a free call for me, so why not? Yes, I'm happy with the service. No, I don't want a new phone for the privilege of signing up for a contract. No, I have no questions or comments... and no, I missed the opportunity to share my existential angst with an unwitting call centre agent - but I was tempted.

Every once in a while I have answered calls that are obviously from someone selling something just for the fun of having someone tortured because they called me. The time that I was still living with my parents and got a call from a carpet cleaners was probably the most fun. Clean my carpet? I don't have a carpet. Clean my furniture? I don't have any furniture. Do you have a phone? Yes! I have a phone! Isn't that great? I obviously sounded like a kid, so this was just a bit of fun that wasted his time, but he called me, so he was fair game.

Sometimes I just feel like wasting the time of someone phoning to sell me something. They are paying for the phone time and the call centre agent, so it costs them money. Getting the call aggravates me, so why not make them pay for it? I don't get angry or abusive to the agent, it's not their fault, they are probably just stuck in a noisy room doing a job they hate. But the company they work for is fair game.

So next time I'm feeling easily distracted... I may not hang up so easily.