Even in the best of times, I have a pretty ambivalent relationship with the phone. I find that nearly all of the calls coming to our land line are spammy and are quite annoying, though it is true that the doctor and dentist offices typically try to reach us on the land line first. While the government has been trying (completely ineffectually) to crack down on it, robocalls and other unwanted scam calls have completely dominated the airwaves or rather mobilesphere, with one study saying that an unbelievable 45% of all calls nationwide are a scam of one sort or another (and, btw, most of the apps that are supposed to help cut down on spam calls actually sell your data to other companies and most likely then generate even more spam calls). In my case, as I don't really have family or friends that try to reach me by cell phone, it is probably 90%. Like most people, I leave my cell phone on silent all the time and simply will not answer it if the number isn't coming from a personal contact (and even then virtually everyone just texts me and doesn't actually call). As a side note, if everyone did this, we wouldn't have to spend so much time in movie theatres and actual theatres telling people to silence them...
Since the crisis, I have had to do far, far more work from home and am often on the phone for hours. I probably will lose my voice from time to time, which usually happened about once a year when I was a teacher (many, many years ago). So I'm not really enjoying that at all.
Anyway, a slightly long set up to an unfortunate incident this evening. I actually took a call from the land line, and it was a legitimate call, but one I still found a bit unsettling, since anything involving my personal finances and someone knowing my name on the phone makes me suspicious. So in that sense I was primed. I also was pretty exhausted, as I have been pushing too hard this past week. Later in the evening, I got a call from a private number and ignored it. Then it called back and I answered, and the person asked for me, then started by saying something like "This may surprise you, but you and I have something in common." I said "No" and hung up, and then ignored the follow up call.
It was an hour later that I realized this call was part of Outside the March's Mundane Mystery series. I felt like a complete idiot, as it had completely slipped my mind the call was coming. They had even warned participants that the call would come from a private line (and the call did come at the correct time). In my defence, it was not the person that was I expecting to talk to (I had spoken with someone else on Monday, and this was a male not a female as before), and the script they used was incredibly triggering for me, almost exactly like a typical scam set-up. I thought that they were supposed to leave a message or something if they didn't make the connection, but that didn't happen, and I honestly don't know if they will call tomorrow. I'm not even sure I care any longer, given that I flaked out and missed out on a whole session. There was another theatre company that was going to try this, and I know for sure that I won't participate in that one. I've even given up on the two companies that are trying Instagram things, since I hate that format so much. I'll stick to Zoom sessions from here on out.
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