The Da Mother Code?????

DaVinci Code? nhell no.. it's Da Mother Code...

I chance upon this piece of article.. recently.. feels that it's something good to share...i am amused by the writer's sense of humor ..which is with a tinge of sacrasm...

Down Under with Neil Humphreys.

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Thanks to spammers, my mum's phone calls are insane.

Spammers are making my life a misery. They are turning my mum into James Bond. A telephone conversation with her is a cross between a coded dialogue with a secret agent and a freemason's initiation cermony.

The calls are surreal.

"Hello, Mum, it's me. How are you?" I begin brightly. Silence.
"Mum, it's me, are you there?"
"Who is 'me'?"
"What do you mean, "who is me'? It's me. Your son."
"Prove it. Tell me your shoe size and the name of your favourite actor."

After adding $10 to the phone bill by discussing my enormous feet and Robert De Niro's resume, i finally convince my mother that i am indeed, me.

"Thank God, its you," she replies. "you could've been one of those telemarketeers."
"Mum, how many telemarketeers call up pretending to be your son?"
"you can never be too careful. Those buggers will try anything."

The fact that i have made contact with my mother is already a considerablke achievement, my reward for sucessfully navigating a laborious, vetting system of security chedks. It would be easier to get through to the Istana.

To Avoid the telemarketeers, my mother has developed a unique relationship with the phone. When it rings, she dosn't answer it.

"How am i suppose to speak to you, if you won't answer the phone?" I once asked.
"Call me and let me know you're going to phone me."

Honestly. I have to call, let it ring three times and then replace the receiver. If i then redial immediately, she may answer.

That's the coded alert to my mother. If i inadvertently allow the first call to ring four times, she won't pick. Because the telemarketeers are always calling potential customers and then hanging up after three rings, you knbow.

"You've got the Caller ID thing," I reassure her."Don't you realise it's me when it displays "international call'?"

"NO, they call up from Indai and discuss my life insurance while i'm making a shepard's pie."

NOw, my first job was delivering newspapers. By the age of 12, i was also working at my grandad's cafe, which involved burning toast abt ducking to avoid being punched by drunk Irish labourers. So, I try not to denigrate other people's occupations.

BUt there is something so finer-down-the-blackboard-annoying about the telemarketers thay they make me want to eat my own phone just so that i don't have to listen to them.

The frenetic speed of their voice doesn't help. Terrified that we are going to slam down the phone, they serve up as many tasty money-saving morsels of bait as they can in a bid to reel us in. The telemarketer who called this week sounded like Micky MOuse sucking on a helium balloon.

He said: "Hellomrneilcanisaveyouhundredsofdollarsonyourelectricitybillsandofferyouone
monthfreeelectrictyandthenpauseforbreathbeforemyheadexplodes."
The vocal bullet train left me so bewildered that i never paused to sonsider that this stranger knew my name,age and address and unaceptable invasion of privacy involved.

"Now I've got you on the phone," he continued. "How is your power supply?"
"Fine.Otherwise you wouldn't be talking to me on this cordless phone, would you?"
"ha, ha, Mr neil. That's a good one."
It wasn't. But these guys will stop at nothing to keep us on the phone. When they ask - as they always do - if there is anything else they can do, I'm often tempted to say: "Yes, can i borrow your wife over the public holiday?"

After his promise of a 10 per cent reduction in my monthly bill fell on deaf ears, my frantic telemarketer made a desperate attempt to appeal to my patriotism.

"The electricity is 100-per-cent Australian," he said produly to the boy from Britain.
"Is it really? Wow, that's a flag-waving fact, isn't it?"
"yep, we are the only company that offers electricity that is 100 per cent Australian."
"I always liked Singapore's service. Can you send over a few bucketful of Singapore electricity?"

Having enjoed the recent Voices letters on the Spam Control Act in Singapore, you don't win a tin of spam for guessing my views on spammers. Whether it's a telemarkete offering kangaroo electricity or an email gauranteeing to extend the old cuckoo bird, it's all spam, to paraphrase Monty Python.

Spam with emails. Spam with text messages. Spam with phone calls. Spam with spam. Thanks to the spammers, i must break the Da Mother Code every time I call her and it's getting increasingly difficult.

I know her shoe size, but I can't remember why she fancies John Travolta.

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See what i mean?

I do agree with him.. some telemarketers really get on my nerves.....
But then in Singapore, whereby ppl work like robots... I dun blame them....