So I’m a fly on the wall. And I’m listening in on a group therapy session of telemarketers when my number comes up.

Well good morning, awesome Moxie-Dude readers!

It’s Monday. I know. And as I posted on Facebook earlier this morning, it’s time to grab a cup of coffee and let the BS begin.

But before you go face the day, I have a question:

Is it just me or are telemarketers on some sort of guerrilla-marketing mission lately? And when I say “lately” I mean ALL LAST WEEK. In total, I must have received 7 calls for spontaneous credit card approvals, grass treatments and bizarre surveys. Clearly my home number has made the top of every telemarketers list from here to India.

And how does that work anyway? Is it because I work from home? One disgruntled marketer sitting in his cubicle calling number after unanswered number finally calls my house and BINGO – someone (me) proves that there IS life at the other end of the line, automatically putting me at the top of some sort of telemarketer’s “hot list”?

Confession: Once they get past their, “hello, how are you today?” the conversation never goes how they expect.

“I’m great. What are you wearing?” I ask.

“Ummm . . .” Of course this always throws them off because it’s not part of the script.

“Oh never mind. You don’t have to answer,” I say sympathetically. “You caught me at a good time because I’m not wearing anything.”

Usually, this earns me an unprompted hang-up, which I believe is not part of the telemarketers’ code of ethics guidelines – By. The. Way.

Sometimes though the marketer on the other end will stay with me and actually go off script.

“Oh yeah? Tell me about that,” he’ll say. (Women have already hung up by now.)

“Well. The reason I’m not wearing anything is because I’m housebound on account of my weight. And I thought you were Richard Simmons calling me for my daily pep talk. I’m almost down to 700 lbs. He’ll be so pleased!”

This is where I find out that even the most adventurous telemarketers aren’t as in the mood for chatting-it-up as they first thought.

*click*

And then I get to high-five myself.

The most annoying of all telemarketing calls is the overly enthusiastic voice recording telling me that I’ve just won a trip to the Caribbean. If my plight with telemarketers was a chess game, the recorded call gets my queen every time.

So I guess the big question is this:

Why do I even have a landline? The only people who call me “at home” are telemarketers and my mother.