10/28/24 – Becoming Pirates

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Continuing to tell his story to Audri and Val, Gerek said, "we bollycks gathered our remaining survivors together, and figured out how to propagate the race healthily with the numbers we had left. We decided to become nomadic and to survive through pirating -- killing and plundering. The pain of the betrayal still burns in the bollyck heart, even more-so since the rest of the galaxy didn't seem to care. And so we never found healing or forgiveness, and eventually our pirating become our culture. Throughout the universe, it's now rare to find someone who doesn't know at least one person who was killed by a Bollyck. Not surprising, everyone has come to hate us and value us less than even non-sapient beings. But this has only made it emotionally easier for us to engage with them without mercy." Audri said, "it's like humans and telemarketers. I'm not sure there's any resolution to that kind of rift." Val said, "I know! right?!"

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Some rifts were meant to not be mended. I’m talking about telemarketers. Maybe there’s a chance with the Bollycks.

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Continuing to tell his story to Audri and Val, Gerek said, “we bollycks gathered our remaining survivors together, and figured out how to propagate the race healthily with the numbers we had left. We decided to become nomadic and to survive through pirating — killing and plundering. The pain of the betrayal still burns in the bollyck heart, even more-so since the rest of the galaxy didn’t seem to care. And so we never found healing or forgiveness, and eventually our pirating become our culture. Throughout the universe, it’s now rare to find someone who doesn’t know at least one person who was killed by a Bollyck. Not surprising, everyone has come to hate us and value us less than even non-sapient beings. But this has only made it emotionally easier for us to engage with them without mercy.” Audri said, “it’s like humans and telemarketers. I’m not sure there’s any resolution to that kind of rift.” Val said, “I know! right?!”
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9 Comments

  1. Xerxes Aragon

    These days it’s the con artists and scammers on the phone that are worse than the telemarketers. I don’t even answer the phone live anymore, I let the the answering machine pick up while I screen the call. If it’s someone worthy I’ll pick up. On top of that my greeting says this is an unmonitored phone line to give additional discouragement to scammers and telemarketers. Still, some of the scammers are using robo-callers so I still get the occasional message that need to call a number to avoid legal action.

    1. tlhonmey

      Put the DTMF tones for “number not in service” at the beginning of your answering machine tape and the robo-calls will magically evaporate.

      And, on the bright side, most of the cell-phone generations won’t recognize them, so possibly not all of your friends will quit calling you too…

  2. Stephen R

    I work at a phone bank that handles calls of political natures. At this time of year we’re trying to get out the vote or encourage early and mail in ballots for the upcoming election. Rest of the year we’re mainly calling about upcoming events ( meet and greets for upcoming events and local elections, mayor, dog catcher and such) and calling on behalf of AARP to make sure member’s addresses are up to date after the Post Office said that they unable to deliver members material to them ( magazines and such). And also call about potential changes in regulations that can effect the way they receive care from their caregivers.

  3. Stephen R

    My biggest pet peeve is that when the person being called realizes that I work at a call center they assume that I’m Indian, Asian or anything but and American. ” I can’t understand your accent. ” they say with their confirmation bias. If you compare the US to Europe two things become quickly apparent: 1. We have the land mass of roughly 34 Europium Countries and 2. The people in the mid-west have a different accent from the northeast ( New York ) and both are different from the southwest ( California ). America has five different accents at least.

  4. Hamish

    I just don’t answer at all. If it’s important they will leave a message. Of course I grew up in the 1950’s. Our phone on the farm was on a party line so if some other farmer was on the line talking about breeding cows ya had to wait. 🙂

  5. Pete Rogan

    I now answer my phone in Swahili. This usually only triggers the autoscam software into connecting me to the recording with a >poit<. At which point I have my police whistle ready. Amazing how quickly some of those relays shut down at the sound. They don't seem to be able to handle input at 110 dba or higher. I win!

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