making friends

I am spitting nails right now.

Approximately five minutes ago the house phone rang.

What was that? House phone??

Yes, we have a land line. We're paranoid and think it's important to have. It rarely rings, unless it's a political call or a survey or the firefighters wanting money.

It was a political survey.

They asked to speak with The Hater, who happened to be on his cell phone talking to someone else, which is what I told the girl on the phone... *

She immediately started telling me that she was with a political polling place and wanted to get my opinion on abortion.

Oh good, I thought, I know exactly how The Hater would have responded!

The question was basic. They wanted to know if I considered myself "pro life", "pro choice" or "undecided".

I told her we were very decidedly "pro adoption".

She laughed and said, "Yes, that's a great solution. And we encourage domestic adoption 90% of the time." She went on about how it was important "to be conservative" and "take care of unborn babies".

Then she asked the question again. I told her we were still pro adoption.

She said, "It sounds to me that we have many of the same values in common."

I agreed, "Certainly we do." (what I was about to say was that we both want people to make their own decisions, but I didn't get that far)

She laughed again. Followed by a, "I admire your attitude."

And before I could give her the direct answer she wanted she said, "I'm just doing my job, you BITCH" and hung up the phone.

Oh no she didn't.

Oh yes she did.

I picked up my cell phone and called them back. There was a really long message about how political calls weren't part of the national no-call list, but if we wanted to leave a message we could and they would get back with us. Oh, yes, I would like to leave a message.

And that's exactly what I did. I told them the time and the time zone I was calling from. I told them The Hater's name and my name. I told them they could remove our number from their calling list, and then told them exactly what their person called me on the phone. I also shared with them my concerns about how it was unacceptable to be called a bitch over a phone call I did not choose to receive. I told them that name-calling was not going to help their cause.

The Hater was oblivious to all of this until he heard me leave the message as I paced across the room.

(Really? You paced? Like in the movies? Yes, I paced. I paced hard. I pace when I'm over a nine on my ten-point anger or frustration scale, when I'm writing and trying to figure out how to word a sentence that's tripping me up, or when I'm an eight and a half on my ten-point sad scale.)

I was really struggling to not be an ass on the phone. I really wanted to get across my disgust and displeasure without living up to my bitchy reputation.

When I hung up the phone I glared at The Hater and told him what happened (while he was on hold with his phone call). Seriously? He was as shocked as I was. He agreed that was OTT. And then he told me it was a blog post.

And I must admit I'm not seeing as much red as when I started typing this out, I'm still quite angry and more than gagged.

I've never.

If they call back they better hope it's The Hater who answers the phone.

* Aside: Last week I the phone rang and it was a survey group, too. I answered the phone and they asked to speak with the man of the house. I told them I was the man of the house and wore the pants in this family. (I figured that if he didn't have enough sense to ask for The Hater by name, he could talk to me.) He laughed, but went on to talk about the car - and then was surprised that I knew the answers. But he wasn't rude or tacky.