I received yesterday a telephone call from James. James works for Sky, and is a tenacious little chap - clearly young and suited to his telesales role. However, as with all nuisance callers, he doesn't take a hint very well.
He asked if he could speak to Mrs MWSC, and I said she was out. "When will she be back?" he asked. I asked who was calling and established James's identity. As soon as he said "I'm calling from Sky" I knew this was a pointless call, and every further second wasted on the line was non-reclaimable. "I'm sorry but she won't want to speak to you, she had a call a while ago from someone at Sky and we don't want Sky, thanks."
I thought that would be good enough, but it seemed I'd overlooked my wife's longstanding relationship with James, and was speaking out of turn. After all, I've only known her for 24 years, and he'd called her "back in June". So, on 7th July, he announces he'd become acquainted with her somewhere between 7 and 37 days beforehand. If we go for the middle ground, that's one day passing after a phone call for every year that I've been with Mrs MWSC. "She would have told you that we don't want Sky, not least because we're moving." So, I'd told James we don't want Sky, that Mrs MWSC won't want to speak to him, and that on top of that, we're moving. In my book, that's a "hint". He didn't take it.
"Yes, she said that you're moving, and I was phoning to check if you had a date yet." I considered for a second the relative priorities. James's priority was to sell me a dish and package. In fact, that was not his priority as such, it was his single mission in life, just as a fish in the sea goes along sucking in plankton without realising what it's actually doing. My priorities in life do not include installation of Sky in a house from which I'm hoping to move, nor discussing anything Sky-related for the foreseeable future. I decided to fend him off with "No, and we're probably renting, so until we know where we're going, or when, and whether the house we go to has Sky already, there's really no point in even thinking or worrying about it."
"Oh, you're going to rent are you?"
When he said this, I was tempted by the appropriate response, which was "No, you stupid cunt - I just lied to you! What's the point of me telling you something so that you then turn it straight back round as a question?" However, I chose not to go down that path but instead decided to remain calm. "Yes, so the last thing on my mind is whether to have Sky or not." This was another hint, or so I thought.
"Well I just wanted to look at what packages might be suitable."
"No thanks." The call ended then, because I put the receiver down. Actually, I mean back into the stand to cut the connection, as opposed to simply 'down'. Mrs MWSC quite often adopts that technique, placing the receiver on the table and letting the caller ramble on while she goes about her business. On one such occasion, the caller was the subject of a wind-up, because the verbose individual was so entrenched in the blurb and a script, that Mrs MWSC and son of TMWSC were massively amused to extend the length of the call with the very occasional 'ah' and 'right' when picking up the handset for a second or two here and there. Twelve minutes, and for eleven and a half of them, the phone was on the table.
Anyway, we have no Sky.
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