It seems they always call around dinnertime. They figure you'll be home, relaxing with a cocktail, ready for their sales pitch. Supposedly, they have this thing called a Do Not Call List. I'm on. Most of my friends are on it. My mom is on it.
Sometimes it even works. But not always, particularly if you have a land line. My solution to telemarketers when I had a land line was to set down the phone and walk away. Come back a few minutes later and they'll be gone. I do listen to political ads because I was once a political scientist and I want to hear their pitch. I take push polls and try to mess them up. I sat through an entire speech by National Rifle Association head Wayne LaPierre in order to hear the lies (and there were many!) but mostly to tie up their people and phone line for as long as I could.
My mother takes a different tact. She went to the hardware store and bought an Acme Thunderer, the same whistle she used when she was a lifeguard back in the 1960s. She waits until an actual human comes on puts the whistle near the microphone and just plain blows, over and over until they hang up. It cracks me up whenever she does it.
The spam hasn't stopped. But really it's just rage against the machine. Mom's pissed off and having her family time interrupted and wants them to know it. What I want to know is what they're thinking on the other side, sitting their in their cubicle, headset on when the mark strikes back.