I have friends who smoke.  Being one who frequents Las Vegas, the smoker’s mecca, I’ve grown accustomed to being around smoke on occasion.  I’ve yet to encounter a rude smoker who deliberately wishes to offend me by smoking; smoke is just a byproduct of a nasty habit.  (Their words, not mine.)  When walking down the street, on occasion, I’ll catch a whiff of smoke from a passerby.  Mildly offensive, but tolerable, and certainly not worth the effort to dwell on the incident.  I’m guilty, on occasion, of emitting my own offensive odors.  It’s just something we all tolerate as living in a diverse society.  Now imagine walking down that street, but there’s a person facing you while walking backwards, blowing billowing smoke from a cigar directly in your face, forcing filth into your lungs.  That would be a telemarketer.

So I receive a call at work; the Caller ID denotes a toll-free number, and anyone calling my workplace from a toll-free number is going to be a telemarketer.  Instead of getting the usual monotone droid on the line, the discussion went something like this:

Me: Hello?
Droid: <long pause>
Me: Hello?
Droid: Uhh… hi.  It’s not coming up.
Me: What?
Droid: My computer is supposed to come up but it crashed.
Me: Who are you?
Droid: It won’t even tell me who I called. I’m not sure–
Me: <now panicking> Oh.  Oh no!
Droid: Can you wait for a sec–
Me: Oh no!!  This is bad.  Really bad. What do I do?
Droid: I’m sorry sir.
Me: Oh no! It’s broken?  What do we do? I don’t know what to do!
Droid: I’ll have to call back.
Me: Help!! Help!! Oh no!
<click>

I actually might have been in the mood to buy something that day, too.