GRR

If I were asked to make a list of the 10 most irritating things I could think of, I'm quite sure that Robo calls would be near the top.  We must receive at least half a dozen of them each day, even though we are supposedly on the "Do Not Call" list.

The perpetrators of these irksome intrusions have become quite sophisticated, and somehow they can now manipulate the identity of the number they are calling from to make it look like they are someone you might know (I suppose to get around Caller ID).  This morning at precisely 2:14 I was woken up by the phone ringing next to my ear.  I froze.  No good news comes from a call that deep in the dead of night.  Mr. W is away for the weekend racing ... had something terrible happened to him?  Mr. W's 93 year-old father is in ill health ... had he suffered a drastic setback?  Had something happened to one of my sons? Their wives?  My grandchildren?  Then the caller ID announced that Kimberly Clark was giving me a jingle.  Kimberly Clark sounds like the name of a person, but in fact it's a paper goods factory which manufactures toilet paper, tissues, and things of that nature.  There's a plant just down the road in the next town.  I don't know anyone from Kimberly Clark.  I very much doubt Kimberly Clark had anything to say to me -- certainly not at that hour of the day.  Thank you, Robo -- you successfully managed to wake me up a mere three hours after I'd gone to bed.  And you also succeeded in keeping me awake for the rest of the night.