Lloyd Lofthouse

I know all about the do-not-call list. I signed up for it years ago, but the law has loopholes that favor business and nonprofits. The do-not-call list expires after a few years and you have to remember to call again to be re-listed.

And that list does not guarantee that you won’t be called.

I don’t answer calls that come in without a name or phone number listed on our phone’s digital display.

In addition, my cell phone is turned off most of the time. The only time I turn it on is when I’m away from home.  When I turn it on, I discover that hundreds of calls have come in that do not identify themselves and do not leave a message.  A phone number is there but I never call it back, and there are so many it would take too much time to delete them all.

Today, I was editing and revising my next book—a teacher’s memoir—and the phone rang breaking my concentration. I stopped working and stared at the wall phone’s digital display to discover who it might be.

After all, it could have been a family member or a friend. Then the caller ID window offered no identification or phone number.

Angry, I grabbed the phone and shot, “I don’t answer calls from unidentified people with no phone number. Don’t call me again. I’ll just ignore you. If you want to talk to me, let me know who you are and what your number is so I can decide to answer or not.” I hung up and never gave whoever it was—human or a corporate or nonprofit computer robot—a chance to talk.

What do you feel about these pesky phone calls, and are they worse than cyber SPAM?

Discover A Nation Eating and Drinking its Way to Idiocy

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Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine, Vietnam Veteran and English-journalism teacher.

His latest novel is the award winning Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

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