A Way to Stop Unwanted Phone Calls

My older sister, Heather, thought of this. You have to give her credit; it's really ingenious.

This past Sunday afternoon, she and I were practicing a piano-violin offertory together. It was going fairly well - she always plays great anyway, and I was starting to get the hang of the very simple violin part.

(My younger sister Tiffany had been playing with us, too, until I broke two of her violin strings, trying to tune them. Bad me. Ugh. I hate breaking things. ...But I might as well get used to it, because I seem to be one of those people who is always breaking things. By the way, please congratulate Tiffany; she has just received her first instrument of her own; a violin! She's learning fast - 'specially considering that she only has me to help her.)

Anyway. Back to the topic at hand; phone calls.

Solicitors can be very annoying. But "unknowns" are even worse. If you have an ID on your phone, you probably know what I'm talking about; the ID says "unknown," and when you say "hello," no one answers.

Or there are those calls that have a number and name, and there's still no answer. We have several companies like that; they seem to love our house, because they call us at least every other day, if not more often, yet they never say hello to us. There's only silence on their end of the line. We've finally figured out that it's not worth answering the phone when we see those numbers on the ID.

During the week, the shrill ring of a call that no one wants to answer is bothersome. But on a Sunday afternoon? Come on, folks - don't you ever take a break? Heather and I both sorta groaned when that call came in on Sunday afternoon, but then Heather got a certain sparkle in her eye that I recognized.

She had an idea.

"Here - let them listen to you!"

Giggling, I came close to the phone with my violin, and nodded for Heather to push the "talk" button.

I gave the person on the other line a rousing edition of the song we had been practicing. After I was done, Heather listened to the silent phone for a moment, then hung up.

Okay; maybe that wasn't a very wonderful thing to do....but you know what? We haven't had a soliciting call, an unknown call, or any other unwanted call since then!

I told you I don't play well.