Where’s Homer Simpson when you need him?  Yes….something that was so d’oh today I have to blog about it.

There I was, enjoying the quiet of a nice Chester County morning, sipping my French Press and the phone rang.  It was 9:54 a.m. and it was a cold call, sales call, solicitation call.

Now anyone who knows me, knows how much I hate solicitation calls.

So there was this guy on the phone.  Calling from Philly Direct on behalf of the Philadelphia Inquirer (215-682-2001) – a Google on them shows them to be a tele-pests and tele stalkers. ( Apparently I am also not the only person to find them very annoying.)

I say “hello,” and there is this male voice on the other end of the phone.  Blah blah blah calling on behalf of the Philadelphia Inquirer.  I can barely understand him his enunciation is so bad.  Ah yes, the  virtually unintelligible needs a translator  telemarketing call…my ultimate favorite.

I tell the guy I am going to stop him right there and I should be on the “Do Not Call” list because well I am on “Do Not Call Lists” and religiously reaffirm my “Do Not Call” status…and well they are not a charity. (Not that I have any love lost for charity telemarketers, because I don’t.)

So this guy actually then says to me “Uhhh that means you don’t want to hear about our special offers for the paper?”

REALLY?  Talk about d’oh.  Dumb and dumber has nothing on this guy.  Nothing.

I mean come on Philadelphia Inquirer!  REALLY?  So embarrassed for the Inky.  But hey, they are having groundhog day over editors in their next great new “local ownership”, so I guess this is to be expected?

The moral of this story is, NO I won’t be subscribing to the Inquirer for home delivery – tried that for a few years and they never got it right.  Besides, if you are going to call and hang up a million times and then call and interrupt a person’s Saturday morning and then not get it when you are told someone wants to be on the Do Not Call list for real, then well, not only is a body less than likely to want to subscribe…but you might just blogged about in the process…ya’ know? Free publicity of the reverse PR kind?

Philadelphia Inquirer, stop cold calling me.  Stop cold calling everyone.  Do us all a favor.