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I don’t much care for the telephone, so talking to a telemarketer is really low on my list of things I want to do. Brian, on the other hand, rarely turns down the chance to strike up a conversation with anyone. After listening to the pitch, he starts telling a story and generally having a great time. The poor telemarketer has to ask to get off the phone by the time it is over, all hope of a sale gone, but somewhat heartened (we hope) by being welcomed in a friendly manner.

I try to keep all of this in mind when the inevitable marketing calls come. Recently, I got a call with a survey about family life and parenting styles, and I decided I would follow Brian’s example and listen before I said no. I would be the voice of homeschoolers everywhere.

The young man on the other end of the phone started in with his list of questions. “How many children are in the home?” he asked.

“Seven,” I replied. There was silence.

“You have seven kids?”

“No, I have seven still at home. You asked how many children I have at home. I have 10 children.”

“So you have 10 kids at home then?”

“No, I have seven kids at home.”

More silence, then more questions.

“How many hours of television does your family watch?”

“Does that include videos, too, or only regular TV?”

He checked the form. “I don’t know,” he said. “It just says TV. It probably means all of it.”

“I hate to admit it,” I said, “but I think we watch an hour a day by the time you add it all up.” I felt a little guilty. When we got satellite TV a couple years ago, we promised it would be for educational programming, but our standards had slipped in time.

“That is less than 10 hours a week. Are you sure you don’t watch over 16? To be included in the survey, you need to watch more than 16 hours of television.”

“Well, I guess I’m out then. Sorry.” I tried to sound apologetic, but I am not sure it worked.

“Can you just say you watch 16 hours a week? Isn’t that close enough? We won’t be able to include you in the survey if you don’t say 16 hours.”

“I don’t have time to watch all that television,” I told him. I started to list my responsibilities, namely raising those seven children he had asked about.

He wouldn’t be put off so easily. I got the impression that a lot of people had hung up on him before I came along, and he was hoping to make this work. “It’s OK, I can check on that later. I think we can still use you. Now let me see, how many meals do you eat together as a family?”

“Do you mean dinner? We don’t always eat dinner together.”

“It just says meals. I think it means any meal at all.”

“We eat at least one meal a day together, usually more, but not always.”

“So seven then? You eat seven meals together?” His voice was starting to rise into a desperate pitch. “You can’t eat seven meals a week together, the list doesn’t go that high.”

“There are 21 meals in a week, aren’t there? How can the list not go up to seven?”

I don’t think he heard me. He mumbled something about getting back to me and hung up.

After the call, I realized that Brian has had the right idea all along. Talking to telemarketers can be fun.

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