"dusan's dead!"

Tonight, I was pushed past a limit.

Shortly after I moved to my current address, around 3 years ago, I started receiving calls of an evening by people looking for a "Dusan Belic".

Assuming that I had inherited Dusan's old number, I would politely explain to the callers that Dusan no longer lived here. I was even polite to the people who would get me out of bed to answer the phone when they tried to contact Dusan around midnight.

Whoever Dusan was, he sure seemed to have left his number with a lot of women... although surprisingly, many of them sounded ... older than I would have expected for someone's girlfriends.

No matter how many of them I explained the situation to, Dusan's friends still kept calling him, once or twice a week, for around 8 months or so, and then, finally, the calls stopped.

For the past 2 years, Dusan had maybe 2 or 3 calls a year... until about a month ago. Suddenly, the calls started again, but this time, as often as 2 or 3 times an evening!

I might be a bit slow, but the penny had to drop eventually... these weren't friends trying to contact Dusan, these were %#$$@% telemarketers!

I changed my phone manner from polite to abrupt to blunt to downright rude.

When Dusan got a second call while I was trying to watch a movie on Monday evening, I (literally) yelled at the caller "Please stop calling this number!" before hanging up on her.

I used to feel sorry for these telemarketers... they're only trying to earn a living after all... but now, it's becoming personal. In making their living, they are constantly interrupting and disturbing me and bringing me to the phone unnecessarily, and worse, blocking my phone when I'm expecting real calls.

Tonight, the phone rang just as I sat down to late dinner. I put down my knife and fork, left the table, and answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hello. Is Dusan Belic there?"

"Dusan is DEAD! Stop calling him!!!"

.....

OMG

I know that won't stop the calls, but it gave me a modicum of satisfaction.

And I've added my number to www.donotcall.gov.au , in the hope that might work.