Oddly Enough Blog
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Look, Honey, a free vacation cruise!
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We may have hit the acme of absurdity. We should plant our flag and turn back.
Let me explain. I work at home, and I am interrupted daily by automated calls trying to fool me in some way. I don’t believe it should be legal to intrude on privacy like this, but I don’t make the laws.
Last week, I answered a robotic call and heard, “Congratulations! This household has been selected to receive an absolutely free vacation cruise! Press one for more information, or two to be taken off the list.”
Huh? See what I mean about the off-the-charts absurdity factor here? There is no reason a company would offer a total stranger an absolutely free, no strings attached vacation cruise. Conversely, there is no reason a normal, sane person would decline such a generous offer.
So, we had reached an impasse of logical absurdity, a game played at a whole new farcical level.
What the recording might as well have said is, “Look, we all know we’re low-life brain-eating zombies out to get all your private information and leave you undead in some gutter. If that sounds good, press one.
“If you have an IQ over 80 and want us to lurch on with our criminally insane offer to some other household, press two.”
Being an all-round fun guy, of course I pressed one. I gave them all my account numbers and passwords, told them where I hide the spare house key, and turned my retirement savings into cash.
Tomorrow, we leave for a luxury cruise in the sun-drenched Gulf of Aden for two weeks. Maybe longer.
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Top: The luxury cruise liner Queen Mary 2, or QM2, enters the port of Vigo in northern Spain in a 2003 file photo. REUTERS/Miguel Vidal
Left: Women in bikinis pose on Sydney’s Bondi Beach in a 2007 file photo. REUTERS/Tim Wimborne
Right: Enthusiasts dressed as zombies march across the medieval Charles Bridge during a Zombie Walk procession in Prague, May 21, 2011. REUTERS/David W Cerny
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I’m absolutely shocked at such selling tactics. Shocked! Absolutely!
Yay! Spin is back! How the health are ya?
Speaking for both of our regular readers, Spin, we’re very glad to have you back….
@Spin, in honor of your triumphant return and victory over the undead, I offer a haiku:
BG answers call
boatload of betties, or not.
Spin battles zombies
The automated calls are annoying, that’s why I prefer to do business on the Internet. Right now I’m working on a sweet opportunity with a Nigerian bank official. If this works out the way I’m expecting, I’ll be set for life.
@Spin: Brilliant!!! Not at all far from the truth. My evil twin, “jclimacus sans number” who I suspect is BG’s other loyal reader, got himself into a spot of trouble with Mr. Spam Filter and is currently peeling potatoes down at the Reuters cafeteria, no doubt simultaneously knocking out a rhyme or two which he sends my way to post. Glad you’re back!
When your funds come from Nigeria
You’re certain to be free
To climb aboard the big cruise ship
And sail across the sea.
Just watch where you are travelling
And when you’re to be fed,
Please don’t order any brains
You’re safer ordering bread.
While not the White Hat Conspiracy, I am sure the 2nd photo would be heaven for a few of the OE guys. And the gals got Sumo wrestlers??????
@Spin, hey welcome back! I hope your spot on the bench was warm enough for you.
Now if you will excuse me, I have some lovely ladies in white bikinis to oogle over. Wave your hands in the air if you want Mr. Pilot there! Oooooh yeeeaaahhh.
Spin is back
Intelligent and clever
Zomibes beware!
They should have made the free cruise to Bondi Beach in Sydney, I bet many more would press 1.
Where’s Spin’s post in this blog? Can’t see anything from her.
@Malteser: Apparently, the travel zombies misinterpreted whatever comments I might have posted to have involved something like a brain and ate said comments. That’s a shame because I am sure that, if I posted any comments, they included no brain work whatsoever, so the zombies just ate empty calories.
I say all of us commenters should simply press 1 and take a lovely cruise together.