Every day it’s the same. My house becomes a war zone. The battle ground is my personal space, my sanctuary, my home. The enemy (?!?): telemarketers.  I remember a time before the insidious invasion, if my phone rang I anxiously looked forward to an encounter with someone I liked. If I didn’t like them chances were that there would be no call at all. Sure, some calls were business, but they pertained to the business of life, “your car is ready, you can pick it up”, “we got the candles in that you ordered” or “we just wanted to remind you of your dentist appointment” and to all of these I’d say an appreciated “thanks.”  Yes, bill collectors could mutate the privacy of my home, but I had those calls coming, they were fair though never savored.

Sisyphus must have shrugged about 8 to 10 years ago because as I look back on it, that is when these terrorists began to ignore the “no call zone.”  Now, my phone rings and ever hopeful I run to answer. Sometimes there is a long telling pause, other times a jaunty familiar sounding voice or else the odious, overly courteous simpering voice; all enter my psyche and send me into a tail spin of feeling violated. I hang up on the voice. But it rings again later. I let the answering machine retrieve the call yet stop whatever it is I’m doing just to see if it might be that old familiar sound, a friend’s voice. I could get caller ID but I would still run to the phone to see the number, once again looking for the days when a phone call was not a dreaded affair.

So you see when Sisyphus shrugged he left it up to us to answer that phone everyday, pick it up again and again only to hang it up again all the while knowing that we will do it tomorrow, the next day and the next and that there is no end to the futility of it.