Another Friendly "Acquaintance" - Who Likes Cats!

Hello people. Another post today, as I want to get in a certain number of posts ASAP because after this post which is my 74th I have a surprise post I am posting for #75. So I want to get to it as quickly as possible. Just like a little kid. LOL.

I also have a second reason for posting yet again today. On about Thursday I got a phone call. It was not from anyone I knew. In fact, it was from one of many peoples most dreaded callers - a telemarketer.

Now having been a telemarketer myself and for several years (about 6 plus) I have some idea of how hard it can be. So I didn't "dismiss" the caller outright. However, this was the upteenth time I had gotten this same call.

I knew what it was about from the moment the girl I was talking to said she was from Shaw Cable. I was up to date on my internet bill. It could mean only one thing. She was trying to sell me on a "deal" on "my" cable &/or phone bills.

This is not to be dismissive, but there is no way I would ever use this deal. I live in a group home, as I've mentioned, and tv and phone are paid for by the house. So I attempted to cut her off at the pass so to speak.

Before I even got to that though, I realized I had a very spirited, and also formidable "foe" who was good at her job. Before I could get that statement out, which I did quite quickly though, she had already asked a "softening" question.

Her gambit was the weather. Apparently she was from Winnipeg, where it was rainy and miserable. She asked if that was the case in Edmonton. When I said no, she re-iterated her gloomy situation. I briefly commiss-erated.

What else could I have done. I was a telemarketer too. Having timed her "softening" just right I felt she earned the right to a friendly response. Nevertheless, I knew she had no hope for the reason mentioned above so I quickly brought out the I won't waste your time speech.

Basically, I told her, before she could even tell me why she was calling, what she was calling about. I think that surprised her a little, considering I let her "vent" about her city's weather.

After telling her quickly what she was calling about before she could tell me, I proceeded equally quickly to state the group home situation pre-cluded my needing to buy anything other than my own internet connection.

Finally, I told her the title line of the speech, "so, I won't waste your time". I told her that her next call could be the one and the sooner she went on to that the better basically. That is when she surprised me a little yet again.

She said she was having a bad day, and that she enjoyed talking to me. Apparently, she must have had, along with the crappy weather and perhaps, who knows what personal crises, several bad calls. So she wasn't in a real rush to get back to it.

That is when inspiration struck. Always one to seize an opportunity to promote this blog (my baby), I decided to act. I told her that if she found me so pleasant and agreeable she might be interested in reading my blog and more importantly joining. LOL.

She didn't seem put off by this, or the fact that obviously this was not going to be a quid pro quo situation. I definitely was not a buyer. Nevertheless, she willingly took down this blog's somewhat lengthy address.

Perhaps this was because I used my own "softening" technique. I told her (truthfully) that I had the bet I have with a friend that I get 75 "official" followers by my 1 year anniversary.

She seemed to be on board with this. She even asked about what my blog was about and enquired as to whether it in fact had anything to do with cats. I told her those were just my initials and asked if she liked cats.

She definitely did, so I promised her that I would in honor of her being willing to help with my "project" I would try to post something about cats. Well I honestly didn't know what I was going to write about.

The only person I know well who has cats that I know (and love!) and could tell funny stories about has banned me from talking about her. So imagine my surprise, and my delight when in looking at some other bloggers interviews from the blog-interviewer site I came across the perfect two posts. One in particular.

One site was of a photographer who does nothing but post his pictures (he takes copious amounts he admits) on a quite regular basis. I was going to give the web address to that site as one of his fairly recent posts high-lighted (and well at that) cat photographs.

The second site I came across had only one picture of a cat, but it was a doozy. Picture this. A cat wedging itself in a empty 12-pack case of coke. Head sticking out of the front. Front legs sticking out of the sides and back end and legs sticking out of the back of the paper case with the main body of the cat entombed by paper. LOL. It was a sight alright.

I won't add the addresses for them right now as I would have to look them up in my pages of notes I took surfing websites for inspiration and because my automatic links, as I've said before, don't work right now even after several attempts.

Besides, she stood me up. I'm still waiting for her to join or at least leave a comment as I had asked so I would know she was here. But I mentioned the cat stories as I had "promised" to include cat post material.

So, after beating the drum for friend/acquaintance Daniel Seddiqui in my last post, I was beating the drum for myself and fulfilling a promise with this post to another friendly a-c-q-u-a-i-n-t-a-n-c-e of sorts

Whereever you may be Sammy (yes that is the spelling of -her- name) I haven't completely lost faith in you. Perhaps you got busy. Maybe there were flash floods. Maybe the string of bad callers left you massively clinically depressed. Could be. LOL.

A fellow marketer can dream can't she. LOL. So, dear readers I'll try to keep you posted on any potential "developments". That is if I don't go into a massive clinical depression from waiting perhaps, even likely, unrequited. Alas, tis the way it is.

Till later,

The (sad) C.A.T.