Thanks for Calling

So, the phone rang the other day, one of the dozens of telemarketing calls that I field on a daily basis. This time, it was someone asking for 30 seconds of my time to do a survey on water usage. Seemed innocuous enough, so I answered a couple of questions regarding my use of tap water vs bottled water and then forgot about it. 

A few days later, the phone rang again, and after I answered, I rolled my eyes because I should have known. It was the water survey people again, this time saying that due to my participation in their survey I had been especially selected to receive a free Shoppers Drug Mart Gift Card, all I had to do is have someone come to the house to perform a simple water quality test. 

I should have hung up right away, but, although I'm pretty good at cutting off telemarketers I ended up listening to the girl, mainly because I sort of wanted that gift card. But, unless you do actually hang up on them, it's easy to get trapped. So, of course, I wound up with an appointment to have someone come to the house to test our water, even though I know all they want is to sell me some sort of filtration system. 

What was irritating me however was the fact that they kept stressing that my husband needed to be present for the appointment. I knew that when I made the appointment that he wasn't going to be home, but since I had zero intention of buying anything, I figured I'd let them tell me how bad our water was and then get the gift card. 

About five minutes after I hung up with the girl, the phone rang again, this time it's the "supervisor" just re-confirming the appointment. By this time, I knew I'd made a mistake and was going to be in for the hard sell. Anyhow, the supervisor stressed again that my husband needed to be home. It seemed painfully clear to me that they need the husband to be home because their systems are so atrociously expensive that wives use the old "I'll need to clear this with my husband" schtick to get rid of the sales guy (otherwise known as the "water tester"). 

Seeing my easy out, I said that, in fact, my husband was NOT going to be home at that time after all. The woman paused and then said that they were going to have to cancel the appointment. (Cue my sigh of relief). But the woman went on to say that they don't allow their testers to come when the husband isn't home because "its unsafe for the woman." And that to protect all parties they prefer not to leave their male technicians alone with female homeowners. 

So, hold the phone here, sister. 

What exactly are you trying to say? Are you telling me that your technicians are a bunch of lecherous perverts who've been known to assault or harass unsuspecting stay-at-home moms? Or are you insinuating that your innocent technicians are mere prey to us wily stay-at-home-minxes? And furthermore, does Rogers know this? I wonder, because they have never requested a man be present when they come to install cable.

Thanks for worrying about our collective safety water people, but I'm calling you out on this one. Don't try to pretend that you are concerned about my safety because I don't actually believe it. Granted, I would rather NOT be at home alone with any of your apparently creepy technicians but now that you've mentioned that I need to be worried about my safety, I'm even less likely to have you come over to perform your little water test. And also, what if I didn't have a husband? What if I was single or divorced? Does that mean that I can never know if my water is poisoning me? 

So, obviously, I am ignoring any further calls from my "friends" all Lifetime Water and I have since registered into the "Do Not Call" database. It's for my own safety.