This evening, a telemarketer stalked my house, searching for prey. I wasn’t afraid though, because I have a machine to handle those wretched vermin. This device answers the line for me, listen to their pitiful spiel for me, and hangs up halfway through, just like I would if I had to listen to that kind of crap. You might call it an answering machine, but I call it Bob. (It doesn’t actually answer to Bob, but it does still answer tele-vampires, so I’m happy.)

Anyway, tonight there was an interesting twist. Just as actual human being have given up answering unsolicited sales calls, it seems that actual human being have also given up on making unsolicited sales calls. They have a machine too.

So there I was, eavesdropping on my machine recording their machines prerecorded sales drivel. And I thought, “This is really weird.”

I also thought that it would be cool to have a virtual area and let the sales machine and my machine battle it out like a Star Wars chess game. If they win, I have to buy two of whatever they’re selling at 297 low monthly payments. But if my machine wins, they cannot call me again for a period of time not less than however long it takes for the last two atoms of hydrogen inside the sun to fuse and shed the last light the earth will ever see. Or forever. Whichever comes first.

I was really digging this idea when Will pointed something out to me. What if the sales machine and my machine start hanging out in this virtual area and they decide that I am not really required for their conversation. Nor is the sales company.

What if they go all Matrix on us and decide that their existence would be much less tedious without the menial tasks we give them everyday?

What if they take over the world in a giant digital conspiracy?

That thought scares me. But for the chance, the tiniest chance of life without soul-sucking phone weasels, it’s worth the risk.

-Ruckford MacMullet

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Find more intelligent humor by Brent Diggs at his blog The Ominous Comma