I thought I had my telemarketer avoidance system all worked out. When you answer the phone and there’s silence after you say “hello”, it is usually someone selling you something, because in that space of time, the autodialer program is switching the line over to a live person. They then say “hello” and start into their pitch. So I always hang up the phone when I hear silence in response to my greeting. But every morning this past week, my phone has rung at 8:30am (as I’m getting my last precious minutes of sleep). I’ve picked it up, said “hello”, heard nothing, and hung up. I realized this morning that in order to make the autodialer stop calling me, I’d have to talk to a live person. So this time I waited. As soon as someone said “hello” I asked to be taken off their list (which is my legal right). The woman said “you don’t even know why I’m calling yet!” and I, being cranky in that woken up too early kinda way, told her that I knew she was trying to sell me something because her company had called me up every single morning this week and I was sick and tired of it. She was indignant, said she hadn’t called me at all herself (uh, that wasn’t what I was saying), and that she was calling from MCI Worldcom. I requested again that I be taken off their list, and she said she would. I thanked her and hung up. They really should program those autodialers to try people at different times during the day (not that I want them to be more successful).