Do Not Call

Some days, you learn how much you didn’t know.

At 11:23 a.m., November 28, our home phone rang. Checking the caller ID, I saw “unknown name,” along with a local number: 405-720-1170.

I answered. Immediately, an automated marketing message invited me to sign up for Direct TV. Several years ago, we listed our phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, thus announcing, “Telemarketers, beware: If you call us, you can get in legal trouble.”

Lately, however, we’ve received telemarketing calls, all automated and many having to do with satellite television.

This day, as before, the machine voice told me to press 1 to sign up and to press 2 if I had "received this call in error." Previously, I had pressed 2 and then jumped through numerous hoops to tell the machine not to call our number again. This time I pressed 1 in order to tell the same thing to an actual person.

When the sales rep came on the line, I asked, “What’s your name?”

"Direct TV."

"No, what is YOUR name?" For future reference, I wanted to know who I had told to take us off the list.

He responded, "Do you want to sign up for Direct TV?"

I repeated, "What is your name?"

Sarcastically, he answered, "Mickey Mouse."

"Well, then, Mickey Mouse, would you please remove our number from your calling list." He hung up on me before I could finish the sentence.

Immediately, I dialed the number from which my caller ID said the call had come. A recorded message informed me the number was "disconnected or no longer in service."

So far, I had learned two things: Mickey Mouse works for Direct TV. Caller ID can lie.

Going online to the National Do Not Call Registry website, www.donotcall.gov , I filed a complaint. In answer, I received this reply: “We Are Unable to Accept Your Complaint. The phone number you entered [our landline] is currently not on the National Do Not Call Registry.”

Opening a file drawer, I retrieved my copy of the official “Registration Complete” paper that shows our number listed on the Do Not Call Registry until a date well past November 28, 2007.

“The plot thickens,” I said. Since the Federal Trade Commission maintains the Do Not Call Registry, I called the FTC.

Talk about jumping through hoops. After scanning several web pages to find the customer service number, I dialed 1-877-FTC-HELP, then pressed roughly 37 more buttons – including giving pushbutton answers to “interview” questions – before a living customer service rep picked up the line.

Even she did not know how or why our phone number had apparently dropped off the Registry. Her advice: Register again.

Yet she did inform me: A telemarketing call that begins with an automated prompting is illegal. Regardless whether the number called is listed on the registry, the call is “not legal” and most likely “not legitimate.”

If the FTC rep surmised correctly, the caller did not represent Direct TV but rather is running a scam to get people’s credit card numbers. She told me if even a few people report something like this, FTC lawyers will take action. She filed my report and advised me also to complain to the state attorney general, which I’m now jumping through the hoops to do.

Thus, without knowing it, I uncovered a plot. I reported a scam.

God says in Isaiah 42:16, “I'll take the hand of those who don't know the way, who can't see where they're going” (MSG).

How encouraging! I don't have to know everything - just hold onto the one who does.

© 2007, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Soup

My family knows the limits of my cooking skills. But they love my hamburger vegetable soup. The simple recipe tastes even better warmed up.

So when I called home on the way out the door after work, Megan said, “Sure, I’ll pull the soup from the ‘frig and put it on to heat.”

Megan knows the limits of her cooking skills, too. After I called, she stuck her head inside the room where our other daughter Amanda and a friend named Courtney practiced a violin piece accompanied by piano. “If you were going to cook soup,” Megan said to Amanda, “what would you put it in?”

When I arrived home, violin and piano still serenaded. The soup bubbled in the correct pan. Our cat, who usually accompanies me into the house, exited immediately. She doesn’t care for company – or for new sounds. (None of us play violin.)

Megan was trying to put together a 70’s outfit to wear to “thrift store day” at school. “What did you wear for shoes back then?” she asked me. Let’s see, before the dawn of time, when we wanted to put something on our feet, we . . .

“If you want to see 70’s styles, go look in your closet,” I told her. “The old styles are the new styles.”

Gathering the trophies from a recent closet search at my parents’ home, along with a couple of items we unearthed around the house, Megan created a fashion package she felt sufficiently out of style – but cute.

The phone rang. Courtney’s mom, Connie, asked to speak to her daughter. At that moment, a vacuum cleaner passing near Connie’s cell phone broke the connection. When Connie called back, Megan asked, “Would you and Courtney like to eat dinner with us?”

“Don’t call it dinner,” I said over my shoulder. “It’s soup.”

With my husband away for the evening, we had five females around the table, all needing to unwind. We dined on soup, crackers and raspberry applesauce. We talked about crazy subjects and serious ones. Megan showed off her thrift store outfit. We all showed off our funniest faces. With far too many tasks still calling to be done, we sat before dirty dishes and laughed.

A year ago, Connie and Courtney walked into our lives, thanks to the violin and piano thing. At that time, Megan accompanied Courtney. Since then, Connie’s become the kind of friend you can invite over for soup. Quite honestly, God has had center stage in the relationship.

A year ago, Connie was seeking God. Maybe I should say, he was seeking her. Connie felt drawn to him, but she had questions. I knew where to go for answers. Connie had hesitations, reservations. I had time.

Don’t get me wrong: Connie and I don’t always talk about God. Over soup, we talked about the 70’s, green beans, and family, among other things. But if either of us wants to talk about God, we always know we can.

In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus says,”Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

On a less traveled road, what a joy to share soup with a fellow traveler – second only to the unspeakable joy of being there when she entered through the gate.

© 2001, 2007 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.