Vote "No" on Robo Calls

My white porcelain “Lugarno” soap dispenser from Restoration Hardware lay in shards, liquid soap pooling in the narrow space between my vanity and my walk-in shower. Fearing that water would only “activate” the whole mess, I painstakingly got down on my hands and knees, trying to scoop it all up with paper towel, a step that had to be repeated three times before I reached for my wet Swiffer mop. Was this semi-catastrophe -- and yes I do have a sense of proportion, thank you -- worth the price of encouraging voter participation?

Two days from now, Massachusetts voters will cast their ballots to determine which of four candidates gets to be the Democrat running in a special election for the U.S. senatorial seat left vacant when Ted Kennedy died earlier this year. The record will reflect that I sent $100 to one of the candidates as soon as the election was called. Having sat in a few meetings with her during the course of my professional live, I was struck by her intelligence and decency. So when a lawyer I’ve met during the course of my work sent me an email at work requesting that I contribute to the campaign, I said "yes."

Back to my smashed to smithereens soap dispenser that I can replace easily for the low, low price of $52. Ever since the campaign to succeed Ted began, my home phone hasn’t stopped ringing with calls from two of the candidates, nearly all of which have been robo calls. It’s fair to say that the bulk of those calls have been from the campaign of the woman to whom I sent the $100, and that after getting the calls I like her less than I did before the campaign began.

Just for the record, Dennis and I don’t get to spend much time in our Brookline home, and cherish our limited moments of peace and quiet. My husband is considerably calmer in temperament than me, and says he’s shielded me from a lot of these calls on the evenings I’ve gone out to dinner with women friends.

But yesterday was Saturday, and Dennis was at his studio painting. After a grueling 9:15 a.m. spinning class at Healthworks followed by 45 minutes of upper body weight training, I headed home to do some serious cleaning before he and I needed to leave for a friend’s holiday party in Cambridge. I knew that if I worked quickly, our condo could pass the most demanding of white glove or eat off the floor tests.

I had already cleaned Dennis’ bathroom and was kneeling on top of the vanity in mine -- applying Glass Plus wipes to the mirror – when the phone rang. Hoisting myself down and pulling off my rubber gloves, I raced into our foyer to pick up the phone. O.k., so I don’t have caller I.D. on that particular phone. But my other phone with caller I.D. requires that I look at the phone to see who is calling. When I ran for the phone, I had no way of telling whether it was Dennis or another family member calling on an urgent matter.

Like many towns in Massachusetts, Brookline has a town meeting form of government with five selectman, all of whom I’m sure are civic-minded people with their hearts in the right place. Had any of my neighbors been home, they would have heard me shriek the vilest of obscenities. Call it an immoderate response to learning that I’d leaped down from that bathroom vanity to answer a robo call from a twenty something selectman named Jesse Mermell urging me to vote for the candidate to whom I had already sent $100.

Sure I have nobody to blame but myself for the smashed soap dispenser. But when I returned to my cleaning duties, I was so rattled that in one very quick motion, I knocked the dispenser over. The rest is history.

Political candidates using automated calling services feel smug about being exempt from the Do Not Call Registry. Rest assured I’m on both the federal and Massachusetts Do Not Call Registries.

Of course I was outraged that Jesse Mermell would be narcissistic enough to think that I would give a rat’s ass about which senatorial candidate she happens to be supporting. The comments on Jesse’s Twitter stream generally fall into the “Who Cares” variety. Still her Tweet gloating about receiving at her own home the robo call she had recorded struck me as one of two things: immaturity or sucking up to a senatorial candidate she hopes will provide her with some Capitol Hill sinecure.

The less gracious side of me wants to see Jesse punished for annoying me and countless other people. Put her in a replica of an old-fashioned telephone booth, and make her listen to her own robo call for 24 hours straight. I will not give into pettiness, expressing my anger about the robo calls by staying home from the polls on Tuesday. Nor will I vote for another candidate out of spite, because friends who live in other parts of Massachusetts tell me they have gotten an equal number of similarly annoying phone calls from the other candidates.

Just as I was able to unsubscribe from my candidate’s bulk e-mailings when they got excessive, I would like the option of being able to add political candidates to my do not call list. Although this would not be legally binding, I would hope that candidates would recognize it’s in their own self-interest to stop the uniquely offensive robo calls.