Solitications

8/29/2015

Since most of you that I know work during the day, you are not inundated by calls looking for either a donation of $$ or clothing.  I have neither of those things to share.  After my retirement in 2013, I gave away almost all of my office clothes, I simply don't need them anymore.  Oh, I still have one or two pieces of nice clothing, but primarily I live in pants/shorts and tops.  Dressing in the morning is frankly a breeze.

As for solicitations, while I may internally support your cause, I'm not in a position to give you money.  Retirement is great, but sometimes there's not a lot of money to throw around.  I hate having to get up to answer the phone, only to find it's a computer generated message, someone who hardly speaks English, or please support us by sending money.

Jeff says that I shouldn't bother to get up when the phone rings, just let it go to voicemail.  But, like Pavlov's dog, there's something about a ringing phone that makes me feel it's vital that I answer.  I suppose I keep hoping that someday the phone will ring and I'll have won a prize worth zillions of dollars.  But, since I don't play the lottery or enter the Reader's Digest contest, that's not likely to happen.  

I know that some people put a message on their answering machine that says something like "if you're calling to sell me something, hang up."  I am always trying to be polite, even when it's somebody trying to sell me something.  It was just part of my upbringing to be polite and even at 65, find it hard to break out of that mold.

Years ago when we lived in California, we would frequently get calls asking us to get a subscription to the LA Times.  This is a big paper and my answer was always that the paper was too heavy for me to lift off the driveway!  They stopped calling.

P